Louisville, the 13th-ranked team in America, romped to a 78-47 season-opening win on Friday night.

But the story is not the strong start. Instead, as many basketball coaches have done in recent days, the story is Cardinals coach Rick Pitino talking about the election of Donald Trump. Pitino took two minutes in his postgame press conference to address the newly elected President of the United States and implore Trump to make amends with so many people he's insulted over the past year.

It's a different type of rant from what Texas coach Shaka Smart said on Friday night, when he described Americans electing Trump as a "slap in the face."

Here's Pitino's take.

"He's our elected president, and you can protest all you want," Pitino said. "He's not resigning. Look, I've got problems with him like everybody does. Everybody in this room has problems with him. And I think the only way to remedy a problem is to find a solution. The first thing I said in the show is, look, I'm going to support the president. Call up John McCain, apologize and then publicly apologize. Because that has upset me since day one. That man was five years in solitary confinement and was beaten. He's a hero to all of us, and he needs to be apologized to first. ... And everybody insulted needs an apology. Then you start fresh and get support.

"Look, I know a lot of people -- he belongs to the same club in New York as I do, and a lot of people think he's a good guy. He had to try to win an election. I wouldn't want to win in that way, but he had to try to do it, I guess. But the most important thing now is whoever he insulted, call them up and apologize. And then start fresh with everybody. But the first phone call has got to be to those two families. You just gotta call them, because you made a mistake. And he's not a politician so he's gonna make these mistakes.

"He should be part of the Louisville basketball team and lose his Twitter account. He should join our team and lose that Twitter account. And then he just needs to call those people up. Start fresh, apologize to anyone he insulted from the Mexican community, say it wasn't meant. People, when you apologize and you really mean it, they forgive you. But if you don't apologize, they don't forget."

The Twitter tidbit is an interesting one -- and something a lot of people in the political sphere have been suggesting for months and months. Pitino has never been shy about expressing his opinions on basically anything, but particularly matters of national concern.

For full context, here's video of Pitino's plea to Trump.