John Calipari admits he told Arkansas players to not foul South Carolina again with seven minutes left

Arkansas coach John Calipari had given up all hope of winning against South Carolina with seven minutes to go Saturday. His team found itself down 35 points, and he wanted to get out of Colonial Life Arena as soon as possible.

He issued an order to his players not to foul, and they obliged. Not one of Arkansas’ 17 fouls for the afternoon occurred in those final seven minutes as it would go on to lose by a score of 72-53.

“Just so you know, seven minutes to go, I told them, ‘No fouls. I want to be in the locker room in 10 minutes,'” Calipari explained postgame. “Then 3:50 to go I said, ‘Don’t you foul. I want to be in the locker room in five minutes.’ And I think we were. We needed to just get out of the gym. We gave it away a lot earlier, or they took it from us. But I’ll tell ya too, to do that where they’ve lost some games and to keep their team going, that’s a heck of a statement to their staff and the team.”

It was a brutal loss for the Razorbacks, who are looking to sneak into the NCAA Tournament as a bubble team. The loss to the Gamecocks, who earned only their second SEC victory of the entire season Saturday, certainly won’t help that case.

Arkansas finished the contest an abysmal 15-of-52 (28.8%) shooting overall and 3-of-22 (13.6%) from 3-point range. The defense was also hapless to stop Collin Murray-Boyles, who torched the Razorbacks for 35 points in addition to seven rebounds and four steals.

This is John Calipari’s first season with Arkansas after 14 seasons as the head coach at Kentucky. He came to Fayetteville to get a fresh start as furstration was growing with the Wildcats after some disappointing postseason performances in recent years.

Now the Razorbacks are in danger of missing out on the tournament entirely after Saturday’s results. They were one of the “last four byes” in On3’s latest bracketology rankings and currently sit at 17-12 (6-10 SEC) with two games remaining on the regular season schedule.

It seems tha Calipari’s efforts were made to keep his team rested up fully for these pivotal final two matchups. Next up is a game against Vanderbilt at 9 p.m. CT on Tuesday.