Arkansas basketball announces charity exhibition with Memphis
After months of unofficial reporting, the Arkansas basketball team officially announced the “Hoops for St. Jude Tip Off Classic” exhibition against Memphis this fall.
The game against the Tigers will be played on October 27 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis. Arkansas head coach John Calipari has a lot of history with the Memphis program, as he led the Tigers to a National Championship appearance in 2008 and came within seven points of hoisting a trophy.
In terms of the outlook of the 2025-26 season, this game doesn’t mean anything. But on top of the chance to raise money for St. Jude’s Research Hospital, the exhibition will be the first time Calipari will play against his former team.
“First thing is, this is bigger than that game,” Calipari said. “This is about what we all can do for St. Jude. But this is also about what we can do for the University of Memphis, and what we can do for this great city…(we want to honor) the guys that played here during that time, and we want to honor this city.
“I mean, this city drew Ellen and I to this job. And the diversity was part of the reason we wanted to be here and be a part of this. It’s part of the strength of this city, and it should be recognized and what St. Jude is doing to honor Fred Smith.”
Possibility of a home-and-home in the future?
Both Calipari and Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway were asked about the possibility of a regular season home-and-home matchup between the Tigers and Razorbacks.
Calipari said this game could serve as a trial run for what future regular season contests could be between the two teams that reside so close together.
“If I can help the university. I’m gonna do that,” Calipari said. “This game is bigger than a game, and I’ll be honest, we do a home-and-home, it’ll be bigger than a game. It will be. You know, (Memphis) holds a special place in my family.”
Hardaway said it would be cool to bring a rivalry like that to the two programs.
“Honestly, it’s like Cal said, we’ll see how this goes,” Hardaway said. “But obviously, for what he’s done for the game, and where his teams have always been, that’s what we’re striving to be, so it’s always great. And then to bring the rivalry back from what we had back in the day with Todd Day and those guys, it was pretty cool for the fans.”
Calipari’s Memphis Tigers team
The one name that fans will probably remember the most is Derrick Rose. The 2009 NBA Rookie of the Year and 2011 NBA MVP played his college ball for Calipari at Memphis, and if not for a last-second Mario Chalmers three in the waning seconds of the 2008 National Championship, he’d also have a college title to his name as well.
That Memphis team was nearly unstoppable, and finished with a 38-2 record and featured four players who played in the NBA. Chris Douglas-Roberts was the team’s leading scorer at 18.1 points per game, and also featured Joey Dorsey, who averaged 9.5 rebounds a game.
“There are many people here in that I wish I could recognize all of you, your families and what you did to help us build the city, the university and the basketball program that I coached, we could have never done it if we didn’t all do it together,” Calipari said. “And so, to be able to come back and honor all those people, and I told Penny. I’m not just coming back to play a game, let’s do something. So this is great.”
Tickets for the exhibition game between Arkansas and Memphis will go on sale on Sept. 9 and can be purchased both on Ticketmaster and at the FedEx Forum box office in Memphis.
