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It’s been a big couple of days for college basketball, with South Carolina defeating Caitlin Clark and Iowa on Sunday to finish an undefeated season with a national championship and the UConn men set to play for a second consecutive title on Monday night against Purdue.
But when I turned on a rerun of Sunday night’s late SportsCenter broadcast at 5 a.m. Monday morning, neither of those games was the lead story.
Instead, the focus was on John Calipari and the University of Arkansas. That was mostly about Calipari, of course, but how many times has Razorback basketball gotten that kind of attention over the past couple of years?
As I write this column, no deal has been announced — and things can and do fall apart sometimes — but sources say Calipari and the UA are finalizing a five-year contract that would lure Calipari from a heated seat (and not like the one in my car) at Kentucky to take over the Arkansas basketball program.
Calipari and Arkansas dominated conversation on national sports talk radio on Monday, too. Much of the talks I heard centered on a critique of Calipari’s relative lack of success over the past few years at Kentucky, with one commentator declaring that college basketball has passed Calipari by. That’s the kind of thing people say when a Kentucky coach goes 1-4 in the NCAA Tournament over a five-year span.
From here, hiring Calipari looks like a smart move for the UA. I suppose there’s legitimate room for criticism of Calipari’s Xs and Os — but not his Jimmys and Joes. This man can flat-out recruit, and he gives Arkansas a chance to land players it otherwise wouldn’t. And, as a successful college coach told me a long time ago: “Good players will make you a good coach.”
Calipari likely won’t make quite as much money at Arkansas as he did at Kentucky, but he’ll make significantly more at the UA then Eric Musselman did. Reports are that Calipari is a “longtime” friend of billionaire John Tyson. This looks like the UA — and its boosters — are going all in to seek a return to the highest heights of college basketball.
It’s a gamble, for sure. But it could be a nice jackpot, too.
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Scott Loftis is editor and publisher of the Carroll County News. His email address is SLoftis@CarrollCoNews.com.
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