John Calipari wasn’t subtle with his excuse for Arkansas’s loss to Auburn basketball
As Arkansas head basketball coach John Calipari explained to reporters what went wrong Wednesday night in a 67-60 loss to Auburn, it became apparent quickly what the Razorbacks’ excuses were.
See if you can spot a pattern in Calipari’s remarks.
“The whole idea is not who you’re bringing in, it’s who you’re retaining. When you look at his roster, they’re all grad students. They’re all seniors. And they’ve played together, a bunch of them.” Calipari said, also mentioning the similar roster construction Buzz Williams has at Texas A&M, per the Montgomery Advertiser. “Now, all of a sudden, they’ve got a little rhythm going, and the rest of us are trying to figure out how are going to do this, and how do we finish?
“They’re good. They’re older than most of his teams. Probably, that’s the right way to go. Just go get older players, and retain the ones you have and go from there.”
As most caught from the diatribe, Calipari complained incessantly about the age of Bruce Pearl’s roster. If Calipari turns around and recruits upperclassmen to keep on board in Fayetteville for the next few years — and turns the Hogs into a contender in the SEC — he will have learned from the experience.
If his recruiting strategies aren’t going to change, Calipari is just complaining that Pearl uses the same system he uses better than him.
Pearl has found under-the-radar gems, brought them together, and retained them for years. Calipari tried to do what he did at Kentucky and replicate it at Arkansas. It wasn’t working then and it’s working even worse now.
