John Calipari knows what he has to do with young Arkansas team

You think John Calipari hasn’t been through this before? The basketball lifer, who has been coaching college basketball for more than 30 years, regularly recruits the best high school prospects and molds them into first-round NBA draft picks as teenagers. This is who he is. This is what he does. Calipari knows very intimately what it’s like to take a very raw and talented freshman and develop him into someone who can perform at the highest level in the NBA. Of course he knows what it’s like for young players and young teams to run into a brick wall early in a college basketball season. Calipari isn’t lost or confused after Arkansas’ ugly and lopsided loss to Virginia. He knows what this process looks like and what it entails. He talked about this after Sunday’s defeat.

Calipari said a few particularly interesting things about the process of teaching young players. One is that “this may not be your game.” He meant that for young players who were used to dominating in high school and doing pretty much whatever they wanted on the court because they were so athletically superior to the other players on the floor, the adjustment is significant in college basketball. Against Virginia and other good teams, these high school all-stars – now in the college game – aren’t going to get to the rim at will. They aren’t going to simply take over games. There’s a strong big man from the opposing team who will challenge them. There’s a quality defensive stopper who will take away their dribble. Virginia has solid defensive players who made the game hard for Arkansas’ freshmen. “This may not be your game” is a way of saying, “You might have to pass the ball and find your teammate and make him the centerpiece of the offense.” Getting into the mindset – the habit – of finding the solution to a problem is more important than doing something on your own or thinking you are always the best answer to a problem. That’s what Calipari is trying to get across to his young players.

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Publish date : 2026-11-11 17:00:00

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