The Kentucky/Arkansas Situation Got Much More Interesting Friday

As Rick Pitino came out with a huge - and influential - endorsement of new UK coach Mark Pope.

One of the most entertaining things this week was watching John Calipari settle in at Arkansas while Kentucky’s search looked like it might turn disastrous as prominent coach after prominent coach said: thanks but no thanks.

This was jarring for BBN, which first thought that surely Danny Hurley would take the money and leave UConn for Kentucky, because who wouldn’t, right?

Well, Hurley wouldn’t. Then Scott Drew said no and other coaches like Nate Oats and Jay Wright said not happening.

There was a great gnashing of teeth across the Commonwealth and great unhappiness was directed at A.D. Mitch Barnhart.

Then on Thursday he hired former Kentucky star Mark Pope, who had been coaching at BYU and initially, this was not popular.

Not at all.

Through the day though, Kentucky fans adjusted to the idea and it wasn’t long before he was getting a lot of support, even if some of it was tentative.

That wasn’t true for Rick Pitino though.

Pope’s former coach at UK posted a very strong endorsement of Pope on Twitter/X.

He goes on to praise Pope’s offense, his keen basketball mind and overall intelligence (he was a candidate for a Rhodes scholarship and was in medical school prior to getting into coaching) and he predicts not just success for Pope at UK but greatness. He even offered to “write the check” if UK needed help with NIL.

Among other things, this probably (finally) buries the hatchet between Pitino and Big Blue Nation. This was incredibly generous and should inspire confidence among the Kentucky faithful.

If he’s right, it’ll be interesting to see the contrast between Pope’s rise at Kentucky and Calipari’s move to Arkansas.

There’s a lot to like about Arkansas basketball. The arena is really nice and the fans are passionate. Between Eddie Sutton and Nolan Richardson, the program has an absolute golden age, not least of all beating Duke in the 1994 NCAA championship game.

But Calipari came there because he wore out his welcome in Lexington and because over the last few seasons, the guy has forgotten how to win in March.

To make matters worse, he often told Kentucky fans that “the most important day of the year” for Kentucky Basketball was Draft Night (not for BBN it’s not. It’s Hurley time for them).

Watching the Arkansas media get all moon-eyed over Calipari, who has always recruited well and who is undeniably charismatic, was like watching River City get excited over Harold Hill making big promises in the Music Man.

Can Calipari deliver? He’ll get players to be sure. There’s no reason for him to fail. But it also depends on how you define failure.

Kentucky fans certainly feel like he has failed lately. He’s only won one post-season game since 2019 despite continuing to recruit well and the line about Draft Night being the most important night for Kentucky Basketball hasn’t aged well either.

Still, the lack of proper skepticism in the Arkansas media, the general lack of tough questions suggests a possible extended stay honeymoon for Calipari amongst the Arkansas faithful. There are still a lot of questions the local media might have pursued more aggressively though, like: is your offense outdated? NIL has led to older teams in college basketball and why have you failed to adjust to that? Why didn’t Kentucky do better in the portal?

To be fair, Calipari has had an amazing career at UMass, Memphis and Kentucky. The reality though is that most coaches - Mike Krzyzewski and John Wooden are notable exceptions to this - tend to stagnate late in their careers. It’s only human.

There’s an excellent chance that Calipari gets mad about how he was treated at the end in Lexington and revives his career, if only to spite the entire state of Kentucky.

There’s also a chance that he talks about making changes, like he did at Kentucky, and doesn’t do it, like he did at Kentucky. There’s a chance his Arkansas teams, like his Kentucky teams, don’t hit threes very well. And he clearly recognizes the significance of experience and how youth hasn’t helped his teams as much lately but hasn’t really done a lot to address it. There’s a chance the game has moved on and he hasn’t.

He’s been talking about that stuff, other than the game passing him by, for a while now, but has he made the changes he needed to?

If he had, he’d still be in Lexington.

So it’ll be interesting to see how the two SEC stablemates do next season. If Pitino is right about Pope, he’s going to build a powerful program and probably fairly quickly.

And if Calipari doesn’t knock it out of Bud Walton, especially if Pope kills it in Lexington, the Razorback media is going to feel it got conned.

And then we can revisit River City and see how things look at that point.