The biggest Cardinal killer in the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry? His name is John Calipari.

Forty years ago, Kentucky and Louisville met in the NCAA Tournament — the “Dream Game” it was called — a rare battle of the two basketball powers of the Bluegrass at a time when the Cats and Cards didn’t play in the regular season.

The hoopla surrounding that game finally put enough pressure on UK to move past an Adolph Rupp-era tradition of not allowing U of L onto its schedule, and the rivalry was reborn the following season. Since the Dream Game, the two sides have played 43 times, including three meetings in the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky has won 30 of those games, including all three played in March.

While most of UK’s coaches have enjoyed some big moments in the series since then, John Calipari’s record stands above them all. Kentucky’s 95-76 victory over Louisville on Thursday night pushed Calipari’s tally in the rivalry to 13 wins and just three losses — the best winning percentage of any Wildcats coach against the program’s most bitter rival.

An oddity of Calipari’s résumé in the series: He’s faced four different Louisville coaches — Rick Pitino, David Padgett, Chris Mack and Kenny Payne — and it appears more likely than not that he will face a fifth U of L coach next season, with Payne’s future at his alma mater in serious jeopardy in just his second year in charge.

Calipari’s record against those individual coaches: 8-2 vs. Pitino, 1-0 vs. Padgett, 2-1 vs. Mack and now 2-0 vs. Payne, his former assistant for a decade at Kentucky.

Only one other UK coach in the modern era has faced more than one Louisville counterpart. That would be Tubby Smith, who coached against Denny Crum and Pitino during his decade at Kentucky. (Even Rupp’s three meetings with the Cards all came against the same coach, Peck Hickman.)

Here’s a look at how every Kentucky coach has fared against the Cardinals since the series was revived four decades ago.

Joe. B. Hall

Years at UK: 1972-85.

Record vs. Louisville: 2-2.

Biggest win: Kentucky 72, Louisville 67 (1984 NCAA Tournament) — After all the back and forth over when or whether this series would actually happen, winning the first regular-season edition of it by 21 points — which Hall’s Wildcats did eight months to the day after the “Dream Game” — was surely sweet. But there was much more on the line when the two teams met later that season in the NCAA Tournament regional semifinals. Dicky Beal had 15 points, nine assists and six steals, and UK recovered from a halftime deficit to avoid back-to-back postseason losses to the Cardinals — beating U of L and ultimately advancing to the 1984 Final Four.

Worst loss: Louisville 80, Kentucky 68 (1983 NCAA Tournament) — In the game that sparked the rivalry, U of L trailed at halftime, UK’s Jim Master hit a shot before the buzzer of regulation to force overtime, and the Cards rolled from there, scoring the first 14 points of the extra period to put the Wildcats away in the Dream Game and stamping their ticket to the 1983 Final Four. The matchup — just the fourth between UK and Louisville over a 61-year span — ultimately led to a more widespread call for the two programs to meet every season, and it was finally agreed that summer that the rivalry game would be on.

Rivalry note: Joe B. Hall and Denny Crum coached against each other only four times in this rivalry — two regular-season games and two NCAA Tournament meetings over just two seasons — but it was heated, especially off the court, with Crum publicly lobbying for a Kentucky-Louisville series for more than a decade before it actually happened, much to Hall’s annoyance. But, after their coaching careers were finished, the two rivals became close friends, hosting a radio show together and appearing at basketball events alongside each other. A Herald-Leader photo of Hall and Crum snacking from the same popcorn box at the 2004 Boys’ Sweet 16 in Rupp Arena became an iconic shot of the two foes turned friends.

Eddie Sutton

Years at UK: 1985-89.

Record vs. Louisville: 3-1.

Biggest win: Kentucky 85, Louisville 51 (Dec. 27, 1986) — Sutton’s Cats defeated the eventual national champions in his first taste of the rivalry, but the beatdown Kentucky delivered in Freedom Hall a year later remains an outlier in this series. The 34-point victory for UK on this day is still the biggest blowout since the rivalry resumed in 1983, and Rex Chapman’s one-handed dunk over U of L sophomore Kenny Payne remains a lasting image of the rout. Chapman scored 26 points and hit five 3-pointers against the Cards in this one.

Worst loss: Louisville 97, Kentucky 75 (Dec. 31, 1988) — Sutton was also on the wrong side of the Cardinals’ most lopsided win in the series. UK had finished the previous season with the nation’s No. 6 ranking, but things were already falling apart by the time the Cards hosted the Cats in Freedom Hall on New Year’s Eve 1988. Derrick Miller scored 34 points for Kentucky — still the record for any player in this rivalry — but Pervis Ellison led five Cards in double figures with 20, and Sutton was gone by the end of the season, two years of probation looming for UK’s program, and the rivalry’s most central figure getting ready to take the reins next.

Rivalry note: Four years before being named UK’s head coach, Sutton was leading the Arkansas Razorbacks, who beat reigning national champion Louisville in the 1981 NCAA Tournament on a buzzer-beating halfcourt shot by U.S. Reed, who Sutton had instructed his team to get the ball to in the timeout that preceded the play. “Champions die hard,” the Razorbacks coach declared after ousting the Cardinals.

Rick Pitino

Years at UK: 1989-97.

Record vs. Louisville: 6-2.

Biggest win: Kentucky 88, Louisville 68 (Dec. 12, 1992) — Pitino beat Louisville by at least 20 points three different times as UK’s head coach — including twice in Freedom Hall — and this was the first of that trio of blowouts. Nine months after the Christian Laettner shot, Kentucky’s Unforgettables were gone, but Jamal Mashburn was back, and he dropped 27 points on Louisville in this one, going 10-for-15 from the field and hitting 5 of 7 from 3-point range in front of the U of L fans. This Cards team was ranked No. 9 at the time, and the Wildcats kept on rolling, all the way to the 1993 Final Four, the program’s first trip that far in nine years.

Worst loss: Louisville 88, Kentucky 86 (Jan. 1, 1995) — Pitino’s only other loss to the Cards came early in his first season, while he was rebuilding the program amid the challenges of probation. This New Year’s Day defeat in Freedom Hall is famous for Samaki Walker’s triple-double — 14 points, 10 rebounds and 11 blocked shots — the U of L big man frustrating the fifth-ranked Cats throughout with one of the series’ most memorable individual performances. Louisville was unranked in this game (and the Cards squeaked into the NCAA Tournament as an 11 seed later in the year) but UK shot just 28-for-82 from the floor. The Cats won 22 of their next 24 games before losing as a 1 seed to North Carolina in the Elite Eight.

Rivalry note: Pitino left UK to take charge of the Boston Celtics after the 1996-97 season, but that obviously wasn’t the end of his connection to the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry. The architect of UK basketball’s early 1990s rebuild returned to Lexington on Dec. 29, 2001, as the head coach of hated Louisville, boos raining down on him from the Rupp Arena crowd and comparisons to Judas and Benedict Arnold, among others, coming from corners of the Wildcats’ fan base. Pitino ultimately coached Louisville for twice as long as he led the Cats, compiling a 6-12 record against Kentucky in his 16 seasons with the Cardinals.

Tubby Smith

Years at UK: 1997-2007.

Record vs. Louisville: 6-4.

Biggest win: Kentucky 82, Louisville 62 (Dec. 29, 2001) — Smith beat a No. 4-ranked Louisville team in Rupp and a No. 13-ranked Cards squad in Freedom Hall during his tenure, but this one — even though it came against an overmatched opponent — was the most memorable. The entire commonwealth seemed on edge when Rick Pitino returned to Rupp Arena to face his former team as U of L’s head coach, and the ex-leader of the Cats did not receive a hero’s welcome when he walked onto the court in charge of UK’s most bitter rival. Smith had his detractors from the get-go in Lexington — even though he delivered a national title in his first season — but everyone was squarely on his side for this one. Chants of “Tubby! Tubby!” rang throughout Rupp, which watched their Cats deliver a cathartic blowout of the Cards. “They should boo me, I’m the Louisville coach,” Pitino said afterward. “They should cheer Tubby. He’s the Kentucky coach. When they start booing me in Freedom Hall, that’s when I know I’m in trouble.”

Worst loss: Louisville 81, Kentucky 63 (Dec. 28, 2002) — The joy of defeating Pitino was turned upside down the following year, when UK entered Freedom Hall as the No. 14 team in the country and returned to Lexington badly beaten. An unranked Cardinals team — led by former UK center Marvin Stone’s 16 points — outscored the Cats 51-30 in the second half and gave Kentucky fans a little taste of what was coming. Later that season, Pitino led U of L to its first NCAA Tournament win in six years. Two seasons after that, the Cards were in the Final Four for the first time in nearly two decades. Louisville basketball was back, Pitino was in charge, and this rivalry was reignited for the foreseeable future.

Rivalry note: Tubby Smith was criticized for how his tenure ended — back-to-back second-round exits in the NCAA Tournament as an 8 seed — but he actually won his last three matchups with Louisville, including a victory over the eventual 2005 Final Four team in Freedom Hall. And Smith’s win over the No. 4-ranked Cardinals in Rupp Arena the following season marked the highest-rated Louisville team that UK had ever beaten to that point in the rivalry’s history.

Billy Gillispie

Years at UK: 2007-09.

Record vs. Louisville: 0-2.

Biggest win: None.

Worst loss: Louisville 89, Kentucky 75 (Jan. 5, 2008) — The Gillispie era lasted only two seasons, and the writing was on the wall by the time Billy G met Louisville for the first time as Kentucky’s head coach. UK had already suffered six losses — including embarrassing ones to Gardner-Webb, UAB, Houston and San Diego — when an unranked Cardinals team came to town. UK led by one at halftime, but Rick Pitino’s squad outscored the Cats 32-9 out of the locker room to deliver another disheartening defeat to Gillispie’s team. This is still UK’s most lopsided loss to Louisville in Rupp Arena, and — 15 years later — it also remains the last time the Cards beat the Cats in Lexington.

Rivalry note: Strangely enough, beating Louisville in Rupp Arena might have been what got Gillispie the Kentucky job in the first place. With Tubby Smith on the way out, Gillispie’s Texas A&M team faced Pitino and the Cards in an NCAA Tournament game in Lexington, and the 3-seeded Aggies pulled out the victory over 6-seeded Louisville in a game that came down to the final shot. It was Gillispie’s fifth season as a head coach — three at A&M and two at UTEP before that — and he’d never advanced past the first week of March Madness until beating the Cards in Rupp. Had Texas A&M lost that game, would UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart had taken a chance on such a lightly seasoned head coach? Just as strange, the Aggies were bounced from the tournament in their next game — a 65-64 loss to John Calipari and Memphis.

John Calipari

Years at UK: 2009-present.

Record vs. Louisville: 13-3.

Biggest win: Kentucky 69, Louisville 61 (March 31, 2012) — No question about this one. Calipari is one of three UK coaches to play U of L twice in the NCAA Tournament but the only one to sweep both games — Adolph Rupp and Joe B. Hall both split with the Cards in March Madness — and this 2012 win over Louisville came in the Final Four after a week of national buildup and collective dread from the fan bases on each side. Anthony Davis had 18 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots, and Kentucky won its first NCAA title in 14 years two days later.

Worst loss: Louisville 73, Kentucky 70 (Dec. 21, 2016) — There’s not really a “bad” loss on Calipari’s résumé in this rivalry. All three occurred in the Yum Center, and all three came by only three points. Two happened to a couple of Calipari’s worst Kentucky teams — the NIT squad of the 2012-13 season and the 9-16 team in the 2020-21 campaign — so the other one lands here by default. Louisville native Quentin Snider put on a show in his hometown in this game, scoring 22 points to go with six rebounds and five assists. He nearly dropped Bam Adebayo to the ground with a dribble move in the final minutes, blowing by the Kentucky big man to give the Cards a seven-point lead with 1:45 left. One of the few happy memories for the Cards since Calipari came to town.

Rivalry note: Calipari and Pitino will always be linked in the college basketball history books, their paths crossing at multiple points throughout their career. They faced each other for the first time 32 years ago, when Calipari was in charge of UMass and Pitino was in his third season at Kentucky. In total, the two Hall of Famers have faced off 23 times in college. Calipari had a 1-4 record against Pitino in those UK vs. UMass matchups, his one victory a win over the Wildcats’ seemingly unbeatable 1995-96 title squad. (The Cats beat the Minutemen in the Final Four later that season.) The two coaches then squared off in several memorable battles between Memphis and Louisville, each going 4-4 against the other as Conference USA members before the Cards left the league for the Big East. And then Calipari beat Pitino eight out of 10 times in the UK-Louisville rivalry, giving him a 13-10 overall record in the head-to-head series.

Calipari also coached one other game against the Cats, with his Memphis Tigers beating Tubby Smith and Kentucky 80-63 in the 2006 Maui Invitational, the second loss in Smith’s final season as the Wildcats head coach.

Next game

Illinois State at No. 9 Kentucky

When: 7 p.m. Dec. 29

TV: SEC Network

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Illinois State 7-4, Kentucky 9-2

Series: Kentucky leads 1-0

Last meeting: Kentucky won 75-63 on Nov. 30, 2015, in Lexington

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What’s the biggest blowout in the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry? Will this be one of them?

‘The gap is closing.’ Kenny Payne talks after Louisville basketball’s loss to Kentucky.

Kentucky’s new basketball court at Rupp Arena is being replaced after just one game.