John Calipari on fan influence to leave Kentucky: 'Fans don't move me that way'

The new head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks men’s basketball team, John Calipari, wants to make one thing clear — the Kentucky Wildcats fans did not influence his recent departure.

On Wednesday, Calipari was officially introduced as the next head coach of Arkansas basketball. Shortly after his introductory ceremony, the Razorbacks’ new head coach had the opportunity to answer questions from the media. While answering a question on how he plans to develop his coaching staff and roster for the next basketball season, Calipari made a slight detour and opened up about the Kentucky fans.

“I told my wife, ‘You really wanna do this?’ [She replied], ‘Yep,’” said Calipari. “You’re brave, you’re courageous. And again nothing that happened about me coming here; I was running to this. Fans don’t move me that way. Do we have some fans here that can be a little riled up? It’s everywhere in the country; it’s not just Kentucky, Arkansas, or wherever else you want… If I’m not gonna take or ask for somebody’s advice, I’m certainly not gonna listen to their criticism. It is part of what we do. This fan base is so engaged; I love it.”

Calipari has not been one to run from the criticism, especially during his time at Kentucky. So it should come as no surprise that he has no intention of doing so at Arkansas. The Razorbacks’ new men’s basketball head coach understands that there are passionate fans no matter where you go, especially if you’re the head coach at one of the upper-echelon programs in the country.

Calipari on Arkansas roster: ‘There is no team’

Calipari is tasked with having to build his first roster at Arkansas from the ground up.

Left with no scholarship players after the Eric Musselman era, the new Razorbacks head coach is going to have to approach the transfer portal and high school recruiting space with the knowledge that he’s going to be starting from scratch.

“I met with the team — there is no team,” Calipari joked during his introductory press conference on Wednesday. “So now I’ve got to — Hunter’s really, extremely confident — but we’ve got to get a roster together and some of it is a little bit of everything. But we will.

“It may take a little longer because there are kids that put their name in the NBA Draft that are going to go through some of the process, which means, do you wait for that kid? Or do you go take somebody that’s not quite as good? And you’re going to be juggling balls. That’s what we do now.”

Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek said during the presser that he is extremely confident that Calipari can quickly put together a roster that can be compete for championships. The question remains, what type of players is he going to go after?