ROADLEY, Providence — When Arkansas defeated Georgia 68-65 in Fayetteville on January 22nd, it was the cause of atypical season celebrations. One of the March or April variety shows – John Calipari does little.
The Razorbacks were 12-7 by the end of the night, but they were still on track to be an embarrassing flop in their first year in Calipari’s tenure. They started 0-5 in the SEC, with only 64 points averaged with 38% shooting. The team looked like a mess. However, that victory over Georgia was the first team in league play, so Calipari bought some champagne and they were delighted as if they had won the SEC title.
Really?
“Yeah, yes,” the wet winning Calipari told CBS Sports on Saturday on his walk to the car behind the Amica Mutual Pavilion. The decline of daylight, the glare glowing from his face, “My thoughts are, I’m in my first year of building a program, and I didn’t want to go outboard and go crazy – I didn’t expect to be 0-5.
Arkansas lost to Oklahoma at home three days later, and the terrifying return to Rupp Arena was next heavy. Calipari had to wait a week between games before returning to where he coached for 15 years and set out for the night cover in Final 4 last April.
I barely thought Arkansas was defeating Kentucky on February 1st. But it was 89-79 that beat Kentucky, and the Razorbacks season was forever turned over for it. The pigs went 10-5 that night, earning their 10th victory at Providence against 2nd seed St. John’s 75-66 in the Western Region’s second round.
Winning at Kentucky in February.
A victory over Rick Pitino in March.
John Calipari, who currently leads four different programs to Sweet 16, won again when many assumed the opposition.
The 66-year-old finds himself in the red season worthy of an attractive career. Good and bad, high and low.
Saturday’s second round battle was an attractive yet unsightly game with 44 fouls, 58 free throws and an abominable three-point shooting. St. John’s combined with Arkansas to shoot 41-41 over the ARC (9.8%), setting the record for the worst 3-point shooting display in the history of the NCAA Tournament.
“Was it an ugly game? Or was it an exciting game? Both?” Calipari said. “Ugly, exciting game. You know I don’t care. It could be an ugly game and I’m glad we’re moving forward.”
Anyway, how to defeat Pitino.
Arkansas raised 46 paint points more than St. John’s allowed in the game all season. The Hogs held SJU at 28% off the field, tied to the worst shooting of the Pitino coached team in 77 NCAA tournament games (tying 1995 Elite Eight vs. North Carolina).
“They have 28 offensive rebounds and we still won, but that’s crazy,” Calipari said.
I headed towards the sweet 16, not as crazy as the place Arkansas now found itself.
“The whole idea is to want us to be one of those programs where we have the opportunity to win national titles each year,” Calipari told me. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to do that, but you’re in the bat. Now, when we were 1-6, we were barely able to hit.
Inside the way John Calipari visited Arkansas, the Razorbacks roamed the madness of March and led them to the turnaround of the evening season
Brandon Marcello
As the game approached, CBS cameras saw Calipari’s wife Eren and his middle child, daughter Megan, crying in the stands. They overwhelmed the emotions at what was happening right in front of them.
“It was just a few years, right?” Megan told CBS Sports. “The reason I want to beat my dad is because I want him to be happy, because I love him. I don’t care about basketball. I don’t consider myself a basketball fan. I’m a John Calipari fan.
“It’s proven,” Megan added. “He never said that, but I think he feels that way. I feel that way for him.”
“I do too,” Ellen Calipari told CBS Sports. “Every year there’s always the first round upset. I think that part of the satisfaction you get is also part of that build-up. That satisfaction gets bigger then.”
If there is, few coaches are more villainous because of their coaching failures and approaches to roster building like Calipari. The man won the national title. In 2015 he nearly pulled away from his first unbeaten season since Bob Knight. He redefines the meaning of adopting it at the highest level for over a decade. And he had some brutal flops in the winter of his Kentucky career. St. Peter is the most notorious in 2022, and Auckland in 2024. Lexington’s dynamics have become toxic. Caliparis had to go outside.
Arkansas was an unexpected lifeline.
He brings in a lot of staff and Kentucky players and commits with him as well. After all the shock of it was exhausted and realised that much hadn’t changed in the way people were approaching coaching, he was once again called outdated and stubborn.
John Calipari runs in Arkansas after his ugly final chapter in Kentucky.
Dennis Dodd
The move to Fayetteville didn’t make it easy. Personally, this is taxed during the Caliparis season.
“For some reason, this year, I felt like a lot of pressure. I don’t think I’ve felt like that in the past few years,” Megan said. “It’s still really hard to read such a terrible thing about your dad, so it’s probably part of it for me. He feels happy enough to prove so many people wrong, and honestly, I think he likes it. I think he likes getting out of situations.
Saturday may have been Pitino’s latest big moment in his late career revival. I thought a lot of people would have. As expected, St. John’s Red far surpassed Providence’s Arkansas Crimson on Saturday, with City Pitino bringing its final four banners in 1987.
Calipari ruined it, as he did often before.
This was just as unthinkable for him as he did a month ago. Maybe even a week ago.
“I have a lot to say about these kids and how they grew up,” Calipari said of his players. “And my staff didn’t shake. I got to work and didn’t panic. I panic.”
He wondered why it was so bad that it was so fast and bad that he panicked. Freshmanguard Boogie Fland fell before the Georgia match. A running assumption a few weeks later was that he played his final game for the Razorbacks. Luckily, Fland returned to the NCAA tournament and gave Arkansas the depth they needed to beat two Hall of Fame coaches in three days: Bill Self and Pitino.
In doing so, Calipari is just the fourth coach to win consecutive tournament games against Naismith Memorial Hall-of-Famers. Saturday was the 14th meeting of 24 meetings between Calipari and Pitino, with Cal winning. Pitino is thought by many to be on a short list of the best college coaches ever. Calipari’s name is never raised in these arguments. One of the best recruiters ever? The best. Tactical Savant? Not according to his critics.
Calipari knows that. He cares. That bothers him. And there’s little he can do about it.
But now Calipari is the only coach to beat Pitino three times in the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s definitely a rivalry,” Megan said with her father’s dynamics and Pitino. “No matter who denied it. They had a very similar career trajectory.”
On Thursday and Friday, they played 16 sweet games in this tournament, with John Calipari still coaching. Arkansas faces the third-seeded Texas Institute of Technology. This will be the 16th CAL event in the regional semi-finals. There are no more active coaches.
CBS Sports
35 to 16 days ago, Oakland defeated Kentucky 80-76. Calipari’s career looked shaky at the edges. Something had to be changed. He decided to jump under more different circumstances than ever before in his 40 years of coaching.
“I’m not mad at anyone,” Calipari said. “What happened for me is a blessing and I can do what I did in Kentucky, Memphis, Massachusetts and I’m trying to do it here and now.”
As always, Calipari is trying his way – and doing it. Because that has to be the way. Good, bad, whatever it brings.
This tournament can lift you up just as it can crush you. Few people understand this better than Cal. Perhaps the most surreal coaching year of his life can live another week, at least in another game. Arkansas is in the sweet 16. John Calipari is once again finding a way to prove many people wrong.
