Great interview. How the heck did Arkansas get lucky enough to land him as their coach?

Love the part about him saying he has trouble holding his team accountable because some of them are fragile… you can tell he hates this generation and wishes he can coach them so much harder. A byproduct of only wanting 5 stars on your team who are use to the royalty treatment but also makes me wonder if he'd be more successful at a mid major

NyAggie said:

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halfastros81 said:

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Cal is a really good coach imo. It's not easy to take a team of prima donnas and make them into a viable team like he did at Kentucky. The expectations there are ridiculous.

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Yep

Dude can flat out coach. You can tell he wants to be able to keep a team together for a few seasons like buzz has here.

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Good start with so many players following him from Kentucky. I think one is a lottery pick but you'd think he can retain the rest.

Cal is awesome. That was a great interview as usual.

That was some pretty good praise for the Aggies from Cal.

20ag07 said:

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How the heck did Arkansas get lucky enough to land him as their coach?

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They were willing to pay him $7M/year when he was getting run out of town in Lexington.

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A gutsy bet!

halfastros81 said:

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Cal is a really good coach imo. It's not easy to take a team of prima donnas and make them into a viable team like he did at Kentucky. The expectations there are ridiculous.

He already has them fighting. They are problem this yr let alone next yr

I hope they make the Dance. I do not hope we have to play them again either SECT or Damce.

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I'm a Cal fan but he has won 1 tournament game in the past five years. Obviously Kentucky fans were frustrated and that's perfectly reasonable

I lived in Lexington from 1998-2013…

Coach Calipari was always an "open book", and a really good coach, but even he admitted he won because of either -

Overwhelming talent - 9-10 deep…
Or
That one MAGICAL player that can be a difference maker in basketball at the college level…

Not sure he'll be able to achieve previous successes in the NIL/Transfer Portal era…

taylorswift13_ said:

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Love the part about him saying he has trouble holding his team accountable because some of them are fragile… you can tell he hates this generation and wishes he can coach them so much harder. A byproduct of only wanting 5 stars on your team who are use to the royalty treatment but also makes me wonder if he'd be more successful at a mid major

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More successful at a mid major??

maroonthrunthru said:

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I lived in Lexington from 1998-2013…

Coach Calipari was always an "open book", and a really good coach, but even he admitted he won because of either -

Overwhelming talent - 9-10 deep…
Or
That one MAGICAL player that can be a difference maker in basketball at the college level…

Not sure he'll be able to achieve previous successes in the NIL/Transfer Portal era…

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Name one coach that wins consistently at the highest level without elite talent.

I suppose it depends on your definition of elite talent but Sampson has been very consistent with an overall great roster but no one clear next level star type .i know Jamal Shead was a first team AA and is a good NBA player but they lost him and are still right up there.

I get that but the question is have they or will they get someone better than him? It's risky to jettison someone with his record even if he had a bad tourney record for a few years . Only time will tell.

He was 410-122 at Kentucky. That's kinda good. Granted he is 66 yrs old.

halfastros81 said:

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I suppose it depends on your definition of elite talent but Sampson has been very consistent with an overall great roster but no one clear next level star type .i know Jamal Shead was a first team AA and is a good NBA player but they lost him and are still right up there.

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Sampson is about the best example you can get. And that's one of .... what three in the country that would be examples. Tony Bennett was doing a great job but his time was coming to an end with talent running dry due to NIL. Fact is it's near impossible to win without elite talent consistently, so I am not sure why anyone would rip on Cal for not winning without elite talent - cause it's unicornish.

This is why there should be two press conferences at every sporting event. A short one that's recorded and a longer one that isn't.

In this case you've got at least four people in the room (TexAgs, The Eagle, KBTX, The Battalion) that are asking questions looking for quotes for a written story, and all of them are covering the game as A&M beat writers. By the time the press conference starts they've already probably decided on an angle for the story. So they're going to ask questions trying to get quotes related to that angle of the story so you're going to get questions like that. Maybe there was an Arkansas reporter or two there but I didn't notice.

But press conferences now are so performative because they're streamed out live to the world. When a reporter wants to ask a follow up question to make their story better it often seems awkward or like they're being combative in a live press conference when it's a perfectly natural thing to do.

I have always liked him personally.

But for all of you saying that he's a great coach and will have Arkansas rolling soon...

He's having the exact kind of season that he had for about the last five at Kentucky, which is why they wanted him to go. Lots of talent. Capable of big wins. But ultimately, just never comes together.

When someone has a track record, and the current situation looks just like that rack record, I'd not bet on them turning things around.

He'll recruit some great players, and they will be a good team from time to time. But when was Kentucky's last tournament run?

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He's having the exact kind of season that he had for about the last five at Kentucky, which is why they wanted him to go. Lots of talent. Capable of big wins. But ultimately, just never comes together.

When someone has a track record, and the current situation looks just like that rack record, I'd not bet on them turning things around.

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Arkansas' current projection: right on the cut line
Kentucky's last five seasons: 3 seed, 6 seed, 2 seed, missed the tournament, projected 4 seed

Fair enough... and underperformed in most of those when they got there.

I could have been more specific... they clearly have a worse record that Kentucky was having, but I stand by my assessment that Kentucky underperformed relative to their talent in the last 5 years of Cal's tenure there. The lack of confidence in him was palpable amongst Kentucky fans, and this Arkansas season feels like an extension of that, and in my opinion should not be surprise to anyone.

Arky has improved significantly over the course of the season . More than most teams . To me that should have been expected since Cal was starting from scratch with mostly guys he hadn't coached before. He also lost one of his better players to injury.

I don't follow Kentucky enough to know if the lack of confidence in Cal was justified but I do get a pretty strong feeling that their expectations are unreasonably high and almost impossible to achieve. Having said that there's no question their tourney performance was lacking in his last 5 yrs even by lower standards. Only time will tell and even then it's subjective . Maybe both Arky and Kentucky will benefit …. I dunno.

Over the years listening to him since we joined the SEC where have had incredible matchups with his Kentucky teams, IMO, he wouldn't ever give us credit when we had success. If he did it was rare, and tongue and cheek.

Maybe the local media has the same opinion? He def gave us credit more than once here. Plus, since he's regarded as such an elite coach, it's interesting to see his opinion on our team since he literally just coached against them.

He started complaining about having to coach all of these young 5 stars that were gone in one year when he couldn't win the in the tournament. He knew that recruiting wasn't going to change, so he made the change.

Arkansas is trying hard to sustain moderate success in the big 3 sports. Basketball has been doing great in recruiting lately, and there's no reason to think he can't be successful there.

I'm not rooting against him.

BuzzFan24 said:

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maroonthrunthru said:

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I lived in Lexington from 1998-2013…

Coach Calipari was always an "open book", and a really good coach, but even he admitted he won because of either -

Overwhelming talent - 9-10 deep…
Or
That one MAGICAL player that can be a difference maker in basketball at the college level…

Not sure he'll be able to achieve previous successes in the NIL/Transfer Portal era…

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Name one coach that wins consistently at the highest level without elite talent.

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Bo Ryan, Tony Bennett, Rick Barnes?

And you may not realize it, much of Roy Williams' tenure at UNC.

But I hear ya. I really like Cal, and to be able to mold a group of one-and-dones into a tourney threat almost every year is really impressive. It eventually drove Barnes out of t.u. They were recruiting too well, and he couldn't get continuity, and got burned out, and then he turned to Christ (not the guy from He Got Game), which gave him renewed purpose and balance.

halfastros81 said:

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I don't follow Kentucky enough to know if the lack of confidence in Cal was justified but I do get a pretty strong feeling that their expectations are unreasonably high and almost impossible to achieve. Having said that there's no question their tourney performance was lacking in his last 5 yrs even by lower standards. Only time will tell and even then it's subjective . Maybe both Arky and Kentucky will benefit …. I dunno.

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Cal's problems at UK were heavily tied to the performance of his teams in the NCAA and SEC tournaments the last ~5 years but that is only part of the story. His first ~10 years were some of the best in the history of the school and he seemed to have a pretty good handle on the job.

However, his last ~5 years were some of the worst and he become increasingly disconnected from the program. He became openly antagonistic with the fans. He frequently sent assistant coaches to press conferences and his radio show. He 'banned" specific members of the local and national press from access to the program. He managed to piss off every single one of UK's high dollar boosters and then complained about the lack of NIL money. He refused to adapt to changes in college basketball, which seemed to be part to grumpy old man and wanting to "prove" how his ways were "right" to the fans/boosters. He lost many of his longtime assistant coaches and surrounding himself largely with "yes" men. And he had a terrible relationship with the AD the entire time he was at UK.

Arkansas approached him about their coaching vacancy. It is a pretty high likelihood that he intended to leverage that to get more money from UK but by talking to Arkansas without notifying UK he violated his lifetime contract and there was zero chance the AD was going to let him off the hook. He thought the fans were going to revolt and demand he stay but when that didn't happen he left.

I think it worked out well for all parties involved. Cal needs to perceive to be slighted to be motivated, Arkansas has a big name coach, and UK avoided having to pay a large buyout. I expect he'll have success at pig but I would be surprised if they make a Final 4 while he is there.