Razorbacks’ Potential Comes With Warning From Calipari Before Exhibitions

FAYETTEVILLE – As Arkansas transitions into exhibition season for the 2026-27 men’s basketball team, the Razorbacks have more pressure on them this season to be good than many others before them.

From a loaded backcourt to a rebuilt frontcourt, third-year coach John Calipari has delicately pieced a roster together that can potentially contend for the program’s first national championship since 1994 and first Final Four appearance since 1995.

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That certainly doesn’t mean it’ll be easy getting to that point.

Arkansas has a group chock full of freshmen with a few upperclassmen sprinkled in. It might actually take some time for them to mold into a Picasso painting, but Calipari seems very upbeat about what his third team can become ahead of a pair of glorified pickup games against Gonzaga and Memphis.

“The games Gonzaga and Memphis will be great games,” Calipari said on Wednesday. “My guess is we’ll be so nervous, maybe even for both of them that they will look awful. You’ll say ‘they play really hard. They don’t look very good right now, but man, do they play hard.’ And that’s what we’re trying to get to.

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“The thing that is hardest to teach is a competitive spirit. It’s hard. You either have that or you don’t. We have a competitive spirit.”

That’s one major point Calipari mentioned earlier this summer as the conditioning program started and some of his team arrived on campus. In a video that went viral, he told his team, “if you’re not a dog on this team, ah, you won’t play.”

That is so true for every team he’s ever coached, but he hasn’t built a team at Arkansas that can go 10-12 players deep in practice, good-on-good every single day. But he did point some caution tape up because there might be an adjustment period for his team as they learn to play with each other against actual high-major competition.

Perhaps this team can look like a pure mixture of the 1996 Chicago Bulls and the Monstars without their powers from “Space Jam” all at the same time early…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/razorbacks-potential-comes-warning-calipari-173001945.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-01 17:30:00

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