‘Coward’: Louisville Coach Pitino Gets Into Heated Verbal Altercation With Fan Before Being Restrained

On Wednesday, we posted about University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari walking out on an interview because he was being heckled by the student section at the University of Missouri. For the second consecutive night, a famous coach from the state of Kentucky had an issue with the fans. But this time, instead of walking away, the coach engaged.

As he was headed to the tunnel for halftime of his team’s game against North Carolina, Louisville’s Rick Pitino turned around and began screaming at a fan, who apparently said something to him. Pitino kept screaming, and had to be restrained from the fan — who had, at that point, turned his back.

Via Jonathan Jones of Sports Illustrated, here’s a second video of the incident.

Rick Pitino is very displeased with a UNC fan pic.twitter.com/z4bYUuyMw6

— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) February 23, 2017

ESPN.com reports that the fan yelled “Pitino, you suck!” The fan was ejected from the game.

In the postgame news conference, Pitino’s issue appeared to be with not so much with the particular message, but with the messenger — an adult who, in Pitino’s estimation, was acting like a kid.

“I take it from the students all the time,” Pitino said in the postgame news conference. “You expect it from the students. But from an adult? And then turns his back on me like he’s a coward? And he is a coward.”

Watch above, via ESPN.

[featured image via screengrab]

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