Neither Rick Pitino nor Steve Masielo is thrilled with their first-round pairing Thursday on the opening day of the NCAA Tournament.

Pitino and Louisville are the defending national champions and are a four-seed in this year's tournament. They are set to face off against Manhattan, a 13-seed, Thursday night at 9:50 in Orlando, Fla.

Pitino was very vocal about his distaste toward the NCAA Selection Committee for pitting his team against the new team one of his former assistants now coaches, the Associated Press reported.

"I think the pairings sometimes lack common sense," Pitino said ahead of the game. "I don't think they would put somewhere down the road Duke-North Carolina, so... the matchups don't make sense to me. I'm OK with the seedings. I'm not OK with the matchups."

Pitino's relationship with Masielo stretches back to the 1980s. Pitino was the head coach of the New York Knicks and Masielo was the team's ballboy. From 1996 to 1997, Pitino coached Masielo when the latter played for Kentucky. Masielo later went on to be Pitino's assistant at Louisville from 2005 to 2011.

Masielo has even coached Manhattan to be somewhat of a replica of Louisville, an obvious sign of flattery toward Pitino, but now the subject of criticism from both sides.

"To see them come up and then see us come up against them, it takes a little fun out of it," Masielo said before the game, according to the AP. "It's just, that's not fun for me going against someone that I have to now try to beat, and almost in my mind, think negatively about. It's hard for me to do that."

Pitino said he respects the Selection Committee but simply cannot wrap his head around the pairing.

"The selection committee is very fair, very honorable, very honest people, so I can't protest too much because they're doing the best job that they can do. Maybe they're a bunch of soccer ADs? I don't know," he said.

Several pundits and experts wondered why Louisville was seeded as low as fourth in the Midwest region and perhaps Pitino did too. They are the defending champions and won the AAC Tournament, but they were placed behind Wichita State, Michigan and Duke in their region of the bracket.

"We press like him, we trap like him, his offensive sets are just like ours," Pitino said of his former assistant. "That's why I don't like the game. I don't think it's fair. I don't like it. I don't know why they would do it.

"I just don't like the game at all, for either one of us. We won the national championship and obviously we're more heralded, but this is anybody's game. This is not a 1-16."