Cal wants fans to be 'classy' about UofL scandal

Jon Hale | Louisville Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Video | John Calipari looks to U of L game Video | John Calipari looks to U of L game. Dec. 23, 2015

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Little about the rivalry between Kentucky and Louisville can be described as friendly, but with the Katina Powell scandal still hanging over Louisville's program, UK head coach John Calipari has called for his fans to show class during Saturday’s game at Rupp Arena.

“I would tell our fans, ‘Enjoy the game, don’t be bringing in banners, don’t be bringing in posters. Don’t. You don’t need to do it,’” Calipari said. “I mean, let’s just enjoy the basketball game. Let’s be classy. We have the classiest fans. I would expect that’s how they’ll be in this game.”

Whether Kentucky fans take Calipari’s direction to heart remains to be seen, but the presence of a scandal involving a Louisville staffer allegedly paying for prostitutes for recruits and their families may be too easy a target for some to pass up.

Calipari said he has not considered the effect of the Louisville scandal at all as he prepares to face Rick Pitino’s No. 16 Cardinals, but when asked how he thought fans should deal with the situation Saturday he made his view clear.

“Let’s just play basketball,” Calipari said. “We don’t need to relish in anybody’s struggles. I’ve always been that way.”

Calipari noted he brought a similar approach to a game at Massachusetts when his team faced Rhode Island during a gambling scandal in the early 1990s.

“I said, ‘If I see one thing, I will walk off and won’t coach the game,'” Calipari said.

Calipari also called for UK fans to be respectful to Pitino before his first Kentucky-Louisville game in 2009.

Instead of worrying about the scandal, Calipari is instead focused on the difficulty Louisville presents on the court.

“Let’s just have some class,” he said. “Let me just say, we need to worry about how good their team is and how well they’re being coached, not anything that happened five years ago. Let’s just play ball.”

Email Jon Hale at jahale@courier-journal.com . Follow him on Twitter @JonHale_CJ .