Brown: John Calipari’s return to Rupp Arena now just another game for Kentucky basketball

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When the SEC men’s basketball schedule was announced, many perused to find when former Kentucky coach John Calipari would bring Arkansas to Lexington to face off against his old program.

There was more buzz then than there is now. With the Razorbacks struggling to stay out of last place in the SEC standings, Saturday’s matchup isn’t sexy at all.

Calipari’s return is just another game as he’s clearly entering the find out phase of his coaching career. And what he left to discover is that Arkansas is not Kentucky.

It’s the worst-case scenario for Calipari. The one thing he hasn’t been for most of his career is irrelevant. Like him or love him, he’s kept people watching and kept his teams talked about. That only amplified at Kentucky.

But now he doesn’t have the benefit of being at UK. Arkansas isn’t anybody’s “Super Bowl,” as he often touted games going on the road with the Wildcats. Sitting at 1-6 in the league standings and with their best player, freshman guard Boogie Fland, out for the season with a hand injury, the Razorbacks are irrelevant.

Not just irrelevant to UK, but they’re in danger of not making the NCAA Tournament. Not just missing the tournament, missing it with one of the highest name, image and likeness (NIL) budgets in college basketball. The reported $5 million in NIL funds Calipari has at his disposal probably rivals a lot of major conference football programs.

Oh, the schadenfreude will be tangible at Rupp Arena.

UK coach Mark Pope had to build his team from scratch just like Calipari did. While Calipari stuck primarily to his old formula of snatching up the best talent he could find, Pope meticulously combed the transfer portal to get players who specifically fit his system and the culture he wanted to create in the program.

The Cats are doing better than fine with a coach that’s one of their own. Pope, captain of the 1996 national championship team, didn’t have much sizzle when he was hired to replace Calipari. But he’s…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/brown-john-caliparis-return-rupp-101720151.html

Author : The Courier Journal

Publish date : 2025-01-30 10:17:00

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