John Calipari refuses to talk about his UK exit, looks ahead to his Arkansas ‘adventure’

It’s a time of great change in the SEC.

There’s a new coach at Kentucky, two new schools entering their first year in the league and nine teams in the preseason AP Top 25 rankings, a realization of the years-long quest to make the SEC the best conference in college basketball.

Perhaps the biggest change — or, at least, the most jarring one — is the sight of Hall of Fame coach John Calipari wearing Razorback red instead of Kentucky blue.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who introduced all 16 of the league’s coaches at its annual media day Tuesday in Birmingham, made reference to it before Calipari hit the stage.

“I’m among those adjusting to seeing our next coach in a different shade,” Sankey said with a grin.

Any of Calipari’s fellow coaches who said they foresaw this particular change seven months ago wouldn’t be telling the truth.

“I think it was a pretty big shock,” said Mississippi State’s Chris Jans.

“Nobody saw it coming,” echoed Oklahoma’s Porter Moser.

Even those who watched the transition up close acknowledged that it’s taken a period of adjustment.

Adou Thiero, who played the past two seasons at UK — where Calipari had been the head coach since 2009, before his shocking departure in April — ultimately reunited with him in Fayetteville via the transfer portal and acknowledged the sight of Calipari in red took some getting used to.

“When I first got there, everything was different,” Thiero said. “Just seeing a whole bunch of red going from seeing a whole bunch of blue. But, I mean, I like the color red, too.”

Calipari, whose arrival at the SEC media day stage was hotly anticipated — it was his first major media appearance outside the state of Arkansas since he switched schools — kept things muted for the occasion, going with a white pullover adorned with the Razorbacks logo.

Still, Calipari in anything but blue on occasions like this one hasn’t yet entered the normal stage.

“Let me just start by telling you, this is an adventure,” the 65-year-old coach said. “My wife and I are excited about it. Going to be some work. Going to be stuff we’re going to have to do. But I’m excited. … Let’s do this.”

Calipari opened the floor to questions. The first one, of course, was about his departure from Kentucky. And the longtime UK coach made it clear from the get-go that he wasn’t going to answer anything like that.

“I’ve talked about all that stuff,” Calipari said. “You can look it up and see what I’ve said, and it’s going to be saying it over again.”

At one point, Calipari said — perhaps jokingly, though his tone didn’t show any signs of humor — that he didn’t really want to be at this event at all.

“So yesterday — I probably shouldn’t tell you this — but I did a COVID test, because I thought if I had COVID, I wouldn’t have to come,” he said. “My wife called me and said, ‘Not happening, you’re going tomorrow.’”

Instead of his UK past, Calipari said he was there to talk about the strength of the SEC and the investment that has been put into basketball in the conference. Before he took a second question, he, unprompted, referenced the number of draft picks he coached at Kentucky and noted that some of his Arkansas players were already “a little beat up” before the season even begins.

Sound familiar?

“Like I said, this is an adventure,” Calipari said. “I want to have fun with this. I know the challenges. I’ve been in this league. I know how hard it is. But this is something that I’m really excited about.”

Calipari’s future at Arkansas

None of the other SEC coaches who went on stage before Calipari doubted that he would win big at Arkansas, a school with a great basketball tradition but one that hasn’t been to a Final Four since 1995.

“Cal is one of the best coaches in the history of college basketball, and Arkansas is a program that’s got some pride,” said Nate Oats, whose Alabama team was picked to finish first in the SEC and ranked No. 2 nationally in the AP poll this week. “... He’s going to get talent. He’s one of the best recruiters ever to coach in college basketball, and he’s got a lot of talent there right away.”

Fayetteville will have a very Kentucky feel this season.

Following Calipari’s arrival, more than a dozen others associated with UK basketball flocked to Arkansas.

On the court, former Kentucky players Thiero, D.J. Wagner and Zvonimir Ivisic — as well as longtime walk-on Kareem Watkins — will all be Razorbacks this season. Calipari’s group of incoming freshmen features Boogie Fland, Karter Knox and Billy Richmond, who were all committed to UK before Calipari’s departure.

Calipari’s first Razorbacks coaching staff includes longtime UK assistant Kenny Payne — formerly the head coach at Louisville — and Chin Coleman as associate head coaches. Chuck Martin is listed as an assistant coach and the program’s recruiting coordinator, with Brad Calipari, the head coach’s son, on staff as a full assistant with the additional title of director of on-court player development. Tyler Ulis is listed in the team directory as “basketball assistant.”

Coleman and Martin were on Calipari’s final coaching staff at UK, while the younger Calipari walked on with the Wildcats and later served as a grad assistant. Ulis, one of the most beloved players in the Calipari era, served the past two seasons as a UK student assistant.

Former UK assistant Bruiser Flint is the Razorbacks’ “special assistant to the head coach” this season, and several others who were on Calipari’s support staff in Lexington followed him to Fayetteville.

Arkansas was ranked No. 16 in the preseason AP poll and picked to finish fourth in the SEC by media members from the league.

“He’ll do great. Just like wherever he’s gone, he’s built a winner,” said Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, a friend of Calipari’s for nearly 50 years. “He’s one of the great coaches of all time, and he will make it even tougher than it’s ever been to play at Arkansas. I’m happy for him because I think he’s happy, and what he did at Kentucky was really unbelievable if you look back on it in his time there. But what he did at Memphis, UMass, everywhere he’s been — he’s a winner, and he’ll continue to do that.”

With all six former UK scholarship players and recruits projected to play meaningful minutes for the Razorbacks this season, the rest of the rotation is expected to consist of star transfer Johnell Davis — previously an FAU standout who helped lead that program to the Final Four in 2023 — along with former Tennessee big man Jonas Aidoo and high-ceiling forward Trevon Brazile, the only key returnee from Eric Musselman’s final Arkansas team.

Calipari said Tuesday that he especially liked the guard trio of Davis, Wagner and Fland, noting that he built this roster to be a better defensive group than his last Kentucky team, which struggled mightily on that end of the floor before a season-ending upset to Oakland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, continuing UK’s run of March woes and no doubt contributing to Calipari’s decision to walk away from Lexington with five years left on his contract.

Calipari stuck to his word and didn’t address his exit from UK. He said on the day he resigned that it was “time for us to step away” after 15 years and let someone else take the reins of the program.

That man is Mark Pope, of course, and Calipari called the former Kentucky player “the perfect guy for that job” and added that he’d be rooting for the Wildcats, aside from the matchup with his Razorbacks on Feb. 1.

A few hours earlier at the same podium, Pope expressed similar sentiments.

“You’ll never hear me say a negative word about Coach Cal, because there’s not a lot to say,” he said. “He’s a Hall of Fame coach. As a die-hard Kentucky fan and alumnus and former player, I am grateful for everything — all the incredible things — that Cal accomplished at the University of Kentucky.

“And he’s also been a good friend. He’s been a terrific mentor, and he’s always been generous to (Pope’s wife) Lee Anne and I as we’ve gone through our coaching journey. So we wish him the best in everything that he does, and I will forever be grateful for everything that he did at Kentucky. And we’ll be cheering for him every day like crazy, except for February 1st.”

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