INDIANAPOLIS — Forget the superstars running powerhouse programs. Rick Pitino says he knows exactly who the University of Kentucky should be looking for when it comes to hiring its next basketball coach.

“Two guys, you cut them open and it spells UK,” Pitino said yesterday during a break from preparation for today’s Midwest Regional final pitting his Louisville club against Michigan State.

The Kentucky job, one of the most prestigious and tradition-bred in all of sports, is available because the school fired head coach Billy Gillispie after only two seasons. Now the search is on for someone to restore the Wildcats to their former glory. All the usual suspects have surfaced — Tom Izzo, John Calipari, Jamie Dixon, Mark Few, Thad Matta — but Pitino believes a proven coach with no ties to the school is not the answer. He should know, considering he was head coach at Kentucky for eight years and rebuilt a downtrodden, scandal-ridden program. He took the Wildcats to three Final Fours and won the 1998 national title.

Pitino’s endorsement? Either Travis Ford of Oklahoma State or John Pelphrey of Arkansas. Both played for Pitino at Kentucky.

“It’s such a unique job that you need to win over the fans,” Pitino explained. “You need to win the press conference right away. I think they’re brilliant young coaches.

“On top of that, they are beloved by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and all of their fans, what they call Big Blue Nation. For anybody, it’s a big adjustment. For those guys, it’s not. You could take . . . anybody else into the equation, those two guys would be better than all of us for the job.”