John Calipari Embracing Changing Landscape Of College Basketball At Arkansas

New Arkansas head coach John Calipari is known as one of the greatest recruiters in the sport’s history, as he constantly produces NBA talent.

In 14 seasons at Kentucky, Calipari had 47 players selected in the NBA Draft, 35 of which were first round picks. Each of those numbers are set to increase in the upcoming NBA Draft, as well.

Many of those draft picks were one-and-done freshmen, the Calipari formula to success for much of his time in Lexington and even Memphis (2000-2009) prior to his time with the Wildcats.

With rule changes and exceptions allowing players to stay in school longer, the sport has gotten much older. The stark change has affected the entire landscape of college basketball, most notably forcing one of the best recruiters the sport has ever seen to adjust his strategy.

“I’ve always said, ‘What’s next and how can we be first?’” Calipari said to reporters at the SEC Spring Meetings on Wednesday. “So, you kind of read the tea leaves and how they’re going to do things. How are they going to do things where it works for everybody. I’ve always been about players and so I want them to do well but I also want to make sure I’m doing right by them in how you’re dealing with this.”

Part of that adaptation has led Calipari not to recruit so many freshmen, but still making a national recruiting impact through any means necessary, such as potentially scheduling games at Madison Square Garden.

“(We) want to have the type of games, national games — you need to play in Madison Square Garden,” Calipari said. “Look, we want to recruit Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Saint Louis, we do. We know we’re going to recruit nationally. The only thing is, we’re not going to take six or seven freshmen, now it’ll be three or four. Hopefully we retain a few, get a couple transfers and that is the formula.”

ALSO READ: Calipari reveals notable schedule details for Arkansas

Talks of Calipari cutting down on the number of freshmen, adding transfers, and retaining…

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Author : HawgBeat

Publish date : 2024-05-30 14:30:00

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