How to follow John Calipari’s first press conference as Arkansas basketball coach
The John Calipari era of Arkansas men’s basketball has begun.
On Wednesday morning, Arkansas officially announced Calipari — formerly the head coach at UMass, the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, Memphis and Kentucky — as the new head coach of the Razorbacks.
On Wednesday night, Calipari was unveiled to Razorback fans at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville.
Calipari had spent the last 15 seasons as the coach of the Wildcats, accumulating 410 victories during that span. The 65-year-old Calipari — who posted a goodbye video to Kentucky on Tuesday on social media — led UK to four Final Fours and the 2012 national championship, but his teams only posted one March Madness win since 2019.
Now, Calipari will get a fresh start at Arkansas, a fellow SEC school that has a strong basketball tradition of its own. Arkansas has been to six Final Fours, including three appearances in the 1990s under coach Nolan Richardson.
The Hogs won the 1994 NCAA Tournament and were the national runners-up in 1995.
More recently, former head coach Eric Musselman (now at Southern California) took Arkansas to a pair of Elite Eights and a Sweet 16 within the last four seasons using an approach that leaned heavily on players from the NCAA transfer portal.
Arkansas went a disappointing 16-17 overall last season and missed the national postseason altogether.
Arkansas’ two signees in its 2024 recruiting class — forward Jalen Shelley and small forward Isaiah Elohim — have both requested out of their national letters of intent.
The Calipari era of Arkansas basketball officially kicked off Wednesday evening, when a welcome ceremony and Calipari’s introductory press conference took place inside Bud Walton Arena.
The press conference was be open to the public, and plenty of Arkansas fans showed up to welcome their new coach.
Both the ceremony and the press conference was shown live on SEC Network.
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