Arkansas head coach John Calipari will lead a team in his 23rd NCAA men’s basketball tournament on Thursday, but this time it feels different.
Calipari’s Razorbacks (20–13) will play as a No. 10 seed against the No. 7 seed Kansas Jayhawks (21–12) at the Amica Mutual Pavilion in Providence, Rhode Island. He’s back in the Northeast and back to an unknown he once experienced when he took his first coaching job at Massachusetts in 1988.
“I’m kind of back to my roots of being the underdog,” Calipari told reporters on Wednesday.
He will be coaching against Kansas’s Bill Self for a third time in the tournament, and the previous two produced two of Calipari’s biggest career moments. His Memphis team fell to Kansas in the 2008 national championship game, and his Kentucky squad beat the Jayhawks in the 2012 title game.
“Playing someone I really respect, and have a friendship with, it’s hard,” Calipari said. “Because both of us are going to try to beat the other’s brains in. After it’s over, you both feel bad, 12 seconds, then you move on thinking about the next game.”
Thursday’s game also harkens back to his UMass program that had been to one NCAA tournament in 1962 before he arrived. He turned the Minutemen into a contender in the 1990s with one Final Four appearance, which was vacated later due to NCAA sanctions over former Minutemen star Marcus Camby accepting gifts from an agent. Calipari then coached in the NBA for 14 years before successful stints with Memphis and Kentucky between 2000 and 2024.
He had top-10 teams regularly at Kentucky, even amid the frequency of one-and-done freshman players heading to the NBA. It looked as though he could have ridden off into the sunset when he left the Wildcats after the 2023-2024 season, but instead, he took a job with an Arkansas program that hasn’t been to a Final Four in 30 years and made it to the Sweet 16 only three times since and an Elite Eight twice.
In addition, the Razorbacks needed a strong finish to slip into the Big Dance this year as a bubble team with a losing record, 8–10. In a dominant SEC, Arkansas still seems a far cry from the Nolan Richardson era, when the Razorbacks won a national title in 1994 and made three Final Four appearances in the 1990s.
“This was one of those years that was so rewarding,” Calipari said about his Razorbacks. “All I’m thinking about is where we were—threw us in the coffin, forgot the nails. No chance of the NCAA tournament and all of a sudden we’re here.”
“We bust out somehow,” he added. “This team found a way. They became one heartbeat. That was so enjoyable for me.”
Arkansas won four of its last five regular season games, and the Razorbacks beat South Carolina 72–68 in the SEC tournament on March 12 before falling to Ole Miss 83–80 on March 13. The Razorbacks had a No. 16 ranking to start the season but dropped out of the polls in January amid a five-game losing streak. January’s struggles ultimately led to Selection Sunday suspense.
“This is so different for me. Fighting to get in, the rewards of this,” Calipari said. “Every one of these players was in a dark place at one point or another. A really dark place. Questioning, ‘Can I play?’ Questioning everything. The first battle you have is with yourself. We’ve gone through so much [and now] I see kids smiling.”
Arkansas players get a chance to smile more if they can upset Kansas to take on the winner between St. John’s and Omaha in the Round of 32 on Saturday.
