Inside how John Calipari led Arkansas to a late season turnaround as Razorbacks roll into March Madness

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — John Calipari’s eyes lit up when he entered a room tucked away in the bowels of Bud Walton Arena. 

The Hall of Fame coach had just wrapped up his worst season in the SEC with Arkansas’ thrilling 93-92 win Saturday against nationally-ranked Mississippi State, likely securing an at-large spot in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. With only a seven-man rotation and the team’s top two scorers out with injuries, the Razorbacks have turned their season around, winning four of their last five games entering this week’s SEC Tournament.

“I’ve done this a long time and this may be the most rewarding season for me because they are a bunch of good kids that struggled early,” Calipari said.

For a coach who has seen it all – and won it all – in 32 years as a college coach, his first year at Arkansas has been an entirely different experience with its own set of challenges. In his previous 15 years, Calipari led Kentucky to a national title and three Final Fours, and recorded less than 10 SEC wins only once (2020-21), but little had prepared him to watch the Hogs go from No. 16 in the polls to 0-5 to start the SEC season. It is somewhat remarkable that Arkansas has finished 8-5 with wins against nationally-ranked Kentucky, Missouri and Mississippi State. 

The Razorbacks (19-12, 8-10 SEC) are on the right side of the bubble and a No. 10 seed in CBS Sports Bracketology Expert Jerry Palm’s latest projected bracket as they are on the cusp of becoming only the second team in SEC history to make the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team after starting 0-5, according to CBS Sports Research.

Somehow, Arkansas has dramatically improved on the court despite its dwindling depth and has done so in arguably the toughest basketball conference in history. The SEC could land as many as 13 teams in the tournament, shattering the old record of 11 teams from the Big East in 2011.

The shorthanded Hogs defeated No. 15 Missouri, a team they lost to by 18 earlier this year with a healthy roster, and drilled Vanderbilt on the road earlier this month. They threatened to beat No. 1 Auburn in a back-and-forth road loss in February and stormed back in an 85-81 loss to No. 3 Alabama. Still, there have been stinkers. The Hogs lost 72-53 at South Carolina in a game where they scored only 14 points in the first half. 

“Here’s what we know: we can lose to anybody, we can beat anybody,” Calipari said. “So what do you want to do? You can be miserable or win the game.”

The seven-man rotation has significantly improved offensive production — look no further than the Hogs hitting 12 of their first 14 shots and building a 16-point lead against Mississippi State in the second half last week — and the program has rocketed in the NET rankings from No. 57 to No. 39. The way Calipari figures it, if three to four players have fantastic performances, the Hogs can win.

“The rent’s still due,” he said. “Two go down, you can play with five. Three or four don’t show, you’re not winning. It’s done. That’s it. It’s their responsibility to get yourself in a great frame of mind.”

Razorbacks kept roster small

Arkansas’ precarious depth situation was set up by design when Calipari opted to sign only nine players to play in the rotation.

“Six weeks ago, I was worried about winning a few games in the league, not necessarily getting to the NCAA Tournament,” Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek told CBS Sports. “The fact that we’re sitting on the last Saturday of the regular season and, I think, squarely in the NCAA Tournament is just a credit to what he and his staff and those young men have done.”

Once reliant on one-and-done players, Calipari set forth a plan to sign only nine players to name, image and likeness deals when he arrived at Arkansas in April. He hoped a trio of transfers that followed him from Kentucky,  and a few more from the transfer portal, would mesh well with blue-chip high schoolers. At the time, he believed those nine stars could push through a season with little wiggle room for injuries.  After all, it’s difficult to keep everyone on the highly-paid roster happy with their playing time. He believed more playing time would result in fewer unhappy players and, thus, fewer stars entering the transfer portal at the end of the season.

But then the injuries came. Superstar guard Boogie Fland, the Hogs’ leading scorer, injured a thumb in January that required surgery. Junior forward Adou Theiro, the team’s second-leading scorer, suffered an apparent knee injury in a win against Missouri in February and has missed four straight games.

Even the players on the floor have not been full speed. Forward Jonas Aidoo played through foot pain after an offseason surgery. He has scored in double digits only once in the last 14 games, but exploded with a season-high 21 Saturday against Mississippi State. 

Guard Johnell Davis, the nation’s top transfer, was slow to adapt to Calipari’s system and played through wrist pain, affecting his shots and forcing him to miss games in December. He has averaged 15 points in the last 12 games after starting the season averaging 8.4 points.

“We’ve always been together,” said guard DJ Wagner. “I don’t think that was the problem. It was just learning how to play with a lot of talented players. It’s hard to run sets with everybody being really talented, and get in the groove of things. I feel like when it narrowed down, and you don’t have to put too many people in the rotation, that’s when it started clicking.”

Calipari said he hadn’t utilized a seven-man rotation since 1996, his final year at UMass when he led the Minutemen to the Final Four with national player of the year Marcus Camby. 

“That may have been the happiest team I’ve ever coached. Six guys are so happy they’re playing every minute,” Calipari said. “These seven should be happy. You’re going to play. Go play well.”

The comparison between the UMass team that started 35-1 before losing to eventual national champion Kentucky in the Final Four and these Hogs probably stops there, so not much can be learned from Calipari’s past experiences.

“What I kept telling myself was to forget about what you’ve done in the past,” Calipari said. “Just coach this team, because that could be an anchor around your neck.”

Arkansas preparing for arms race

What Calipari has learned this season is it will take more than nine NIL players to win a championship.

Across from the Razorbacks’ bench, in Calipari’s direct line of sight at home games, is a courtside seat reserved for the man who helped build the roster – and will again raise the money required to create a title-chasing team next year. Arkansas super booster John Tyson, the billionaire chairman of Tyson Foods, is already brainstorming with Calipari.

“Philosophically, he recognizes that,” Tyson told CBS Sports at halftime of the Hogs’ home finale. “So does that mean one more freshman or one more portal? 

“Once you get into players nine, 10 or 11, the money changes a little bit. Ten or 11 might be the player that’s got two years left in the portal, and I can [develop] you from there to here, or it’s the freshman that you can say you’re going to be here until your junior year and I’ll get you into a position (to be drafted). That’ll be the conversation. It’s not the one-and-done, but it’ll be the ones you develop.”

It has not been revealed yet how Arkansas’ NIL program will supplement the upcoming implementation of revenue–sharing, which allows schools to directly pay up to $20.5 million to players starting next fall. Tyson wasn’t clear on the particulars, either. The billionaire booster estimates 12 to 14 programs were prepared to fund championship rosters this season. He surmised the number will increase to as many as 30 well-funded teams with the help of revenue sharing.

“We prepared last year for this year,” Tyson said. “It wasn’t one year. It was a two- or three-year mindset that the NCAA has to do something within two years.”

Yurachek, who pulled off the hiring Calipari last April, echoed those sentiments.

“We’re going to invest what we need to with what Coach Cal says he needs for this program to continue to be successful,” Yurachek said. “I didn’t bring him here not to give him the tools to be successful.”

Following Arkansas’ 0-5 start to the SEC season, critics emerged. Anonymous coaches made headlines, calling Calipari “archaic” and unable to “adapt,” in an article written by longtime college basketball reporter Jeff Goodman. An anonymous SEC coach told Goodman: “There’s just no fear now when I see him on the other sideline.”

Two months later, Calipari has pieced together arguably his best performance as a college coach.

“It’s human nature to chatter and make an observation,” said Tyson, who helped lure Calipari from Kentucky to Arkansas last April.”In my business, people will say we don’t know how to run a chicken business. We show up every day, go to work, do our fundamentals, we control the controllables. Coach Cal can’t do anything about the injuries, so he’s working with what he can control.”

Arkansas signed the nation’s No. 1 transfer class and No. 3 recruiting class under Calipari, and ranks fourth in the recruiting rankings for 2025, according to 247Sports. But for now, Arkansas’ Magnificent Seven will have to do. They can give themselves on the bubble with a deep run in the SEC Tournament. First up on Wednesday is South Carolina, the last team to demolish the Hogs.

“They were up 40!” Calipari emphasized. “No, literally, they were up 40, and that’s who we got to play in the tournament. So, let’s just worry about that. The other stuff will take care of itself.”