What culture does John Calipari bring to Arkansas? Former players provide inside look

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It’s been eight months since Arkansas basketball named John Calipari the 14th head coach in program history. He brought a resume filled with winning on the court and in recruiting battles widely unmatched in the college basketball landscape.

But ever since he arrived in Fayetteville, Calipari has been asking for patience from the Razorbacks faithful.

“The process has to outweigh the results for quite a while,” Calipari said during his weekly radio show Monday night.

“The culture that we’re trying to build, it’s not solid yet, but it’s there.”

This latest message came on the heels of a 76-52 defeat to No. 1 Tennessee in the SEC opener, but Calipari has been speaking about implementing his culture ever since he walked onto the Bud Walton Arena floor as head coach last April.

So, what is ‘culture’ in a John Calipari program?

The Southwest Times Record spoke with players from each of the previous three stops in Calipari’s college coaching career. Those players were at their respective schools for Calipari’s first season and the year before he arrived, so they were able to see the changes implemented compared to previous regimes.

In general, culture is a two-way street between players and coaching staff. Here are their interpretations of how Calipari set his culture, along with a look at how he’s carried over those themes, and what still needs to be fulfilled at Arkansas.

John Calipari at UMass, 1988-89

Long before Calipari arrived at a school with any kind of pedigree, he had to convince his players he was the man for the job.

“He walked in the first day, and I didn’t realize how young he was,” Rafer Giles said. “I think for a lot of us, it was the first time playing for someone that close in age. Some of us had a lot of questions, like, can someone this young really coach us hard?”

UMass hired John Calipari on April 26, 1988. He was 29-years old and had never been a head coach, coming off three seasons in which he was an assistant at Pitt. Giles was a 20-year-old rising…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/culture-does-john-calipari-bring-100710153.html

Author : Ft. Smith Southwest Times Record

Publish date : 2025-01-10 10:07:00

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