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Nolan Richardson: John Calipari can end Arkansas basketball national championship drought

zac al-khateeb, usa today network
·4 min read

Arkansas basketball's last national championship came during the 1993-94 season, when the Razorbacks beat Duke for the program's first national title.

The closest the Razorbacks have come to replicating that feat came a year later, when they finished as runners up to UCLA in 1995. They haven't reached the Final Four since, and only reached the Elite Eight for the first time since in 2021 and 2022.

But Nolan Richardson, the coach who led Arkansas to those championship runs, thinks John Calipari is the man to break the program's title drought that began with his team's own run in 1994. Speaking to ESPN on Thursday, the Basketball Hall of Fame coach said Calipari will have everything he needs to succeed in Fayetteville.

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Including, of course, fan support.

"He's got their support," Richardson told ESPN. "Fayetteville is probably to me the greatest job on the Earth as far as the fans are concerned. A lot of times, the fans, they're for the coach who is the coach at the present. They're all in the present mind. If you come in and do a good job, you've got all the fans behind you. You've got 20,000 in the arena. Arkansas has got tremendous facilities. It has tremendous support. A bad night in Arkansas is 17,000 people. That's unheard of."

Richardson's comments come after a rumored fracturing between Calipari and his former employer, Kentucky. The former Wildcats coach, who coached the team to the 2012 national championship, had not led his team beyond the Elite Eight since 2019, which was also the last time his Wildcats survived beyond the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. His final game for Kentucky was a shocking first-round upset to 14 seed Oakland.

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Even so, Richardson told ESPN he believes Calipari's history of success, support from the Arkansas fan base and recruiting prowess make the Razorbacks a potential college basketball power. He also added that the program is well-equipped to handle the challenges of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) with the likes of Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart and J.B. Hunt primed to lend financial backing to the Razorbacks' NIL efforts.

"I don't see why it wouldn't be a job where [Calipari] could come in and win a national championship," Richardson said. "I can see that they can. I don't know another coach who could do it better than Calipari because of his recruiting."

Arkansas basketball 247 recruiting ranking

As Richardson put it, Arkansas' future success under Calipari will come down to one thing.

"It's all about recruiting," Richardson said. "It used to be recruiting and development, and now it's about recruiting the top players. I think [Calipari] is going to do that. I think he's already proven he's a tremendous recruiter by getting all of the one-and-dones. My advice is don't do anything different than what you've always done: go get the best players and you've got a chance to be the best."

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Indeed, Arkansas has already seen an uptick in its recruiting under Calipari: He lured five-star combo guard Boogie Fland, who backed out of his commitment to Kentucky to follow the former Wildcats coach to Arkansas. He is the No. 2 combo guard in the country, per 247Sports' Composite rankings, the No. 3 player from the state of New York and the No. 20 national player.

Calipari has also made inroads through the transfer portal, bringing Adou Thiero (No. 32-ranked transfer per 247) and Zvonimir Ivisic (No. 54) from Kentucky. He also added Tennessee transfer Jonas Aidoo (No. 20) from Tennessee and, perhaps most impressively, Johnell Davis from Florida Atlantic. Davis, the No. 3 player in 247Sports' transfer portal rankings, helped lead FAU to the 2023 Final Four.

As it stands, Arkansas has a top at least a top-six team in terms of high school recruiting, the transfer portal and overall recruiting, per 247Sports' Composite rankings.

This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Nolan Richardson: John Calipari can end Arkansas championship drought