Malik Monk shares excitement for John Calipari at Arkansas: 'Y'all gone see me at Bud Walton'
Sacramento Kings guard and Kentucky alum Malik Monk is riding with John Calipari as he makes the move to Arkansas. Calipari, who coached Monk in Lexington, accepted a five-year contract to take over as the Razorbacks’ coach and was introduced in Fayetteville on Tuesday.
Monk, who is an Arkansas native, shared his excitement for his former coach to take over in his home state Wednesday via X.
“Yall gone see me in Bud Walton,” he wrote.
Although it might be easy to take Monk’s comments as a slight, it’s important to note his history both with Calipari and growing up in Arkansas. He played high school basketball at Bentonville High and was a McDonald’s All-American in the 2016 class.
Monk went on to play just one season in Lexington, where he was teammates with De’Aaron Fox, who also plays for the Kings in the NBA. Monk averaged 19.8 points and 2.3 assists in his lone season as a Wildcat as Kentucky advanced to the Elite Eight.
UK has advanced that far in the tournament only once since then with its last trip to the Elite Eight coming two years later in 2019. The Wildcats have not made it past the second round since then and twice suffered upsets in the first round, including this season against No. 14 seed Oakland.
Calipari ended his time in Lexington as the second-winningest coach in program history behind only the legendary Adolph Rupp. He amassed a 410-123 overall record as the Wildcats coach, leading them to 12 NCAA Tournament appearances, three Final Fours and one championship.
Calipari helped jumpstart the careers of several NBA players, including Monk, during his time at Kentucky. Monk went on to be selected 11th overall in the 2017 NBA Draft to the Charlotte Hornets. He has been in Sacramento for the past two seasons and is averaging a career-high 15.4 points and 5.1 assists per game off the bench in 2023-24.
Arkansas is coming off of a 16-17 season that saw it miss out on the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the past three years. The Razorbacks lost coach Eric Musselman to USC this offseason, but brought in a more than adamant replacement in Calipari.
The coach has take two other programs to the Final Four in both UMass (1996) and Memphis (2008). Now he’ll aim to do so with a fourth and can expect Malik Monk to be cheering him on from the stands.