Go negative on the struggling University of Louisville football team? Boo new football coach Steve Kragthorpe? You’re gonna have report to Kentucky’s top Italian.

At Tuesday’s tip-off luncheon for Pitino’s basketball team, King Rick used six of his 20-minute speech to chastise Louisville fans who have booed the team many times this season (mainly in embarrassing home losses to Utah and feeble Syracuse, but also in a lackluster 58-42 win over Middle Tennessee State and even during a 73-10 win over Murray State, simply because Kragthorpe would not allow backup quarterback Hunter Cantwell to pass).

“This gentleman needs our support,” Pitino said. “Not occasionally, but 100 percent. And you can’t succumb to being negative”.

Follow us after the jump for more on Pitino’s lambasting.Until Pitino’s comments, Kragthorpe was quickly becoming the Derby City’s favorite punching bag. Not only are the Orange Bowl champs a severely disappointing 3-3, it’s defense is 99th, and Kragthorpe’s already kicked off one player (Linebacker Willie Williams, arrested for … well, an interesting use of marijuana; more on the story here) while suspending running back George Stripling and receiver JaJuan Spillman.

But in his speech, Pitino urged the crowd to support Kragthorpe, saying he’ll turn it around.

“We have a great — not from me — but from the best in the game told me we have one of the premier football guys in the game today,” Pitino said.

The problem, many Cardinals fans say, is the team shouldn’t have dropped so far so fast. Many pre-season predictions had Louisville winning the Big East and returning to a BCS bowl game. A number of folks at the tip-off luncheon openly worried the team may not just miss a bowl game, but might not win another game this year.

Of course, that’s as absurd as an SEC fan asking if they can fit three conference teams into the BCS national title game. But it shows how quickly things have changed at Churchill Downs’ neighbor.

BTW, the Cards won’t test out the new Pitino anti-booing idea until Louisville’s next home game, October 27th against Pittsburgh. By that point, Kragthorpe could be 3-5, and booing would be the least of his worries.