RALEIGH, N.C. — If you talk to enough people who were close enough to the truth, which isn’t easy when it comes to John Calipari and all the myths that surround his every move, they’ll tell you there was a moment last April when he was on the verge of going to Arkansas and thought deeply about whether it was something he’d regret.
You’re talking about a man who had spent his entire adult life trying to get a coaching job like Kentucky and 15 years as the biggest show in college basketball for better or worse. Now here he was at 65, just one signature from leaving it behind.
For the first time maybe ever as he climbed from UMass to the NBA, then from Memphis to Lexington, Calipari had to think hard about whether he might be making a huge mistake.
More than 11 months later, and here we are: In the two biggest moments of his first post-Kentucky season, Calipari beat Rick Pitino to get Arkansas to the Sweet 16.
No wonder his wife, Ellen, was visibly crying as the final seconds ticked away of an intense 75-66 upset over St. John’s that might be as personally satisfying as any victory he’s had since leading Kentucky to the national championship 13 years ago.
Nobody needs to feel sorry for Calipari about the way anything in his life or career has turned out, but we can all appreciate to some degree how it must feel to be really good at something for a very long time and suddenly have the same people who praised you for it question in a very loud and public way whether you can still do the job.
Saturday, the question was answered. As it turns out, yeah, Coach Cal has still got it.
Getting this Arkansas team to the Sweet 16 would have ranked as one of the more meaningful victories of Calipari’s career regardless of whether Pitino or anyone else was on the opposite bench. Arkansas started 0-5 in the SEC, didn’t play anywhere close to its potential for most of the season, and didn’t have a lot of margin for error to make the NCAA Tournament.
That’s not what this season was supposed to be after Calipari, backed by a large NIL budget, essentially recreated the team he would have had at Kentucky this season. But that’s also the beauty of college basketball’s postseason: It can wash away a multitude of sins, just as it can ruin the memories of seasons that deserved better.
That reality is why Calipari had to leave Kentucky in the first place. After 15 years, a few blown opportunities to advance deeper in the postseason and being on the wrong side of two humiliating upsets took too much of a toll on his relationship with the fan base. By the time Calipari walked off the floor a year ago having lost to No. 14 seeded Oakland, it was just … over.
Now, neither side should have regrets about what happened in the three weeks that followed. Kentucky’s in a good place under Mark Pope, playing for its own spot in the Sweet 16 on Sunday. Arkansas’ program is back in the national spotlight. And Calipari’s reputation as the guy who can still beat Pitino in a big game after 30 years of knocking heads with him is restored to its full glory.
If Calipari had a moment of doubt along the way about whether going to Arkansas was the right thing to do, he no longer has to look back.
It’s all forward now, on to San Francisco for the Sweet 16 and a big middle finger to anyone who questioned whether he was still capable of getting a team ready to play its best basketball at the very moment it had to be.
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