John Calipari moving to Arkansas is a win-win-win
John Calipari needed an off ramp into a fresh start.
Arkansas needed a bolt of boldness and the excitement that comes with it.
Kentucky needed a way out of an albatross of a coaching contract for what had become a stale program.
It isn’t often that a college basketball coaching move satisfies all parties, but Calipari's jump from Lexington to Fayetteville might have somehow done it.
Win. Win. Win.
Now Coach Cal better go win. Same for the guy who follows him with Big Blue, especially in March (and April).
Let’s start with this: Why would John Calipari leave vaunted Kentucky for Arkansas? Traditionally speaking, this is a step down, a reversal of fortune. Indeed, in 1985, this went the opposite way, with Kentucky not just hiring away Arkansas coach Eddie Sutton but Sutton also making clear the pecking order of the two programs by declaring, “I would have crawled all the way to Lexington.”
This isn’t 1985 any longer, though, and Calipari isn’t an up-and-comer. After 15 seasons at UK, he had a limited future, despite a “lifetime” contract with a $33 million buyout.
Calipari was once the perfect coach for Kentucky, which isn’t for the faint of heart. Rick PItino (no, he won’t be a candidate for his old job) once referred to it as “The Roman Empire of College Basketball” and offered both the size and passion of the fan base as proof.
It’s not just that the Wildcats have won eight national titles in their illustrious history; it’s also that five different coaches have led them there: Adolph Rupp (1948, 1949, 1951, 1958), Joe B. Hall (1978), Pitino (1996), Tubby Smith (1998) and, of course, Cal (2012). Kentucky is bigger than any one man.
Cal gave it a shot. He basked in the attention. He celebrated the fan base. He talked with bravado. When a flood or a tornado struck somewhere in the state, he scrambled together a telethon or a charity game. He knew what the place meant to so many.
And, of course, he brought in wave after wave of top-ranked recruiting classes, not just winning games but also doing so with style and flair. The final score is always what matters, but getting to witness John Wall and Anthony Davis and Devin Booker was pretty fun, too.
There were four trips to the Final Four but just one national title, in 2012, an imbalance that suggested Calipari wasn’t maximizing all the future lottery picks. He celebrated draft night like it was a national title and declared a goal of having Kentucky players make up half the starters in the NBA All-Star Game.
UK fans could reason it was good for recruiting — but only as long as deep tournament runs followed. In 2015, Cal took a loaded 38-0 team to the national semifinals and got upset by Wisconsin, and nothing was ever quite the same. The Cats have won just a single NCAA tournament game since 2019.
Kentucky demands more. That’s the deal. They offer a coach everything and then, rightfully, expect better than NCAA losses to St. Peter’s and Oakland.
For Calipari, there was no easy way out. The program was spinning its wheels, and nothing mattered other than March. If not for his ludicrous contract, the school probably would have fired him. His support — internal and external — was gone. The late, great Billy Tubbs once theorized that a college basketball coach should switch jobs every seven or eight years because after that much time, you don’t make any more friends at a school, just enemies.
Cal was long past the expiration date at Kentucky.
The promise of McDonald’s All-Americans no longer moved the needle. Pointing to regular-season triumphs wasn’t enough. Draft night became a reminder of missed opportunities.
There was no obvious solution, though. The NBA had stopped calling. A big-name job such as Texas or UCLA wasn’t open. Cal is 65 and doesn’t want to retire. He needed a viable opportunity.
Enter the Hogs. And enter this new era of college basketball.
No, Arkansas isn’t Kentucky, but it doesn’t lack for fans. Among SEC teams, it trails only Kentucky for interest in the sport. Sutton made them a national program back in the 1970s. Nolan Richardson won them a title in 1994. Eric Musselman reached consecutive Elite Eights in 2021 and 2022.
Musselman bolted for USC this spring, and Arkansas needed a replacement. They called Cal, who could provide entry to a new level of recruit to potentially break through. Northwest Arkansas is a booming business community. The Tyson Chicken people are fired up. A reported $6 million has been pledged for NIL deals.
The questions now: How many of Cal’s top recruits will jump out of the deals with Kentucky and head to Arkansas? How many current Cats will follow him? Can he get better at utilizing the portal? Will recruiting drop off in the future? In this era, are NIL deals and NBA development more important than “tradition”?
Being a blue blood might not be worth what it once was, now that teams are built via NIL and the transfer portal. Everyone can buy a player, not just shoe companies or old, established, under-the-table recruiting operations.
Simply put, while Kentucky is still Kentucky with or without Calipari, Calipari can also be a big deal with or without Kentucky. After all, Kentucky hired him in part because it wanted him to bring the cache that loaded Memphis with talent.
As for the Cats, they should be able to hire a quality coach who will do better in the postseason. (He can hardly do worse.) That doesn’t mean following Cal will be simple. Landing three or four All-American recruits every season has become the norm, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
And now the expectation is the Final Four, if not more. And soon.
No one knows for sure what will come next, but Kentucky has a chance to move forward with a new savior and perhaps a sixth coach to bring a title to Lexington. Meanwhile, Calipari has a new task with a fired-up school that would rejoice at mattering again.
They can all be winners here.
