As John Calipari entered Bud Walton Arena for his first game at Arkansas on Friday night, the home crowd erupted as the 1990s Chicago Bulls introduction music played in the background.
Although No. 16 Arkansas’ 85-69 win over No. 1 Kansas was a charity exhibition, the buzz surrounding Calipari’s arrival in Fayetteville — after a lengthy stint at Kentucky — was palpable.
But Calipari downplayed Friday’s ovation, which he received from the 19,200 fans who attended the sold-out affair.
“I haven’t lost a game,” he said about the crowd’s favorable reaction.
Though both teams were short-handed — Tennessee transfer Jonas Aidoo didn’t play for Arkansas, and Hunter Dickinson and Alabama transfer Rylan Griffen were both out for Kansas — Friday marked a new chapter for Calipari and Arkansas. His rocky exit at Kentucky unfolded after he followed a national title run in 2012 and a string of Final Four appearances with multiple first-round exits in the NCAA tournament.
But he regrouped quickly at Arkansas, where five-star prospect Boogie Fland, former Kentucky guard D.J. Wagner and veteran Johnell Davis, a standout for Florida Atlantic in the 2023 Final Four, anchor his new squad.
Wagner and Fland combined to score 46 points against a Kansas team that arrived without two of its best players. But Arkansas has also dealt with multiple injuries — Calipari said his team has been unable to hold full practices for the past two weeks as a result.
“We’ve played against [graduate assistants],” Calipari said of the game, which helped raise money for a pair of children’s hospitals in the teams’ respective communities.
Although his Kansas team struggled (7-for-23 from beyond the arc) in the four-quarter exhibition, Jayhawks coach Bill Self said he was not concerned about the result because of his team’s personnel challenges.
But he added he’s not sure he’ll face a better backcourt this season than the one Arkansas boasts. He also said Calipari’s 2024-25 Razorbacks might comprise one of the most talented teams of his career.
“I actually think this team is better than some of the ones he’s had at Kentucky,” Self said. “We’ve played them at least every other year for the last 10 years. There were a couple of [Kentucky] teams that were elite, elite, elite. This team, to me, has a chance to be terrific and maybe more talented than some of the teams that [Calipari] had at Kentucky. Not all of them, but some of them. I think they have a real chance.”
Calipari said that analysis might be premature.
“I actually think this team is better than some of the ones he’s had at Kentucky. … There were a couple of [Kentucky] teams that were elite, elite, elite. This team, to me, has a chance to be terrific and maybe more talented than some of the teams that [Calipari] had at Kentucky. Not all of ’em, but some of them.”
Kansas coach Bill Self
“That’s very early to make that statement,” he said in response to Self’s comments. “Very early to make that statement.”
But the energy in the crowd, and the promise within the roster, was clear Friday, with a victory over the No. 1 team in America in his first game as the new Arkansas head coach.
“All I know is when you have really good guards, you usually have a really good team,” Calipari said.