John Calipari Prepares for Emotional Return to Kentucky

We are less than a week away from John Calipari’s highly-anticipated return to Kentucky. The former UK head coach has refrained from publicly speaking too much about his former team. Now that the game is near, Calipari is finally opening up about his return to Rupp Arena.

“There will be some emotion walking into that building, and really being in town. (I’ll) probably get together with some of my friends. They’re playing good. We’ve got our hands full. Let’s see what happens. They’re a good team. Mark’s doing a good job with them,” Calipari said Saturday.

“We just gotta keep going, keep fighting, keep figuring this out. What does this team look like? What do we have to play like?”

Those will most likely be the only public comments we hear from John Calipari ahead of the matchup with Kentucky. The Razorbacks do not have a mid-week game and Calipari rarely participates in pregame media opportunities.

That response was to the final question of his postgame press conference following another Arkansas loss. The Razorbacks lost their first five SEC games before escaping with a win over Georgia. They had an opportunity to put together a win streak ahead of the road trip to Kentucky. Johnell Davis hit a three to the game with two minutes to play, but Oklahoma made the winning plays down the stretch at Bud Walton to escape with a 65-62 win.

Arkansas has serious offensive issues and it’s not just because they’re missing Boogie Fland. Even when they hit nine threes against Oklahoma, they couldn’t muster 70+ points. That’s only happened once in SEC play for Arkansas, who ranks 13th in the league in scoring and is No. 97 in offensive efficiency.

“We only had nine turnovers. We’re playing fast, we’re doing stuff — only nine turnovers. We gotta make some more baskets. I thought we took probably a few too many threes, but again, they were all open. We’re missing wide-open threes and that’s just part of it. That happens sometimes.”

He added, “They’re not robots. They’re not machines. I’ve said it for many years. I’ll say the same thing. We played well enough to win, we fought like crazy, we never gave up on the game. One error or two errors, but guys, that’s going to be the whole year.”

With a date in Knoxville for Kentucky ahead of the game against Arkansas, there’s a good chance both teams will have losing records in SEC play when they meet at Rupp Arena on Saturday, Feb. 1. Neither fanbase anticipated that ahead of the season. It will only amplify the stakes in a charged atmosphere.

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