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Arkansas trolls Kentucky on social media using John Calipari

Chandler Vesselsby:Chandler Vessels•about 15 hours•

ChandlerVessels

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Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

John Calipari has won many games at Rupp Arena, usually while coaching Kentucky. Saturday, however, he claimed a victory from the opposing bench as he led Arkansas to an 89-79 upset in his first game against his former team.

As one does after a big win, the Razorbacks took to social media to talk a little bit of trash. Of course, they had to include Calipari as much of the story going into Saturday’s gme surrounded his return to Lexington.

“One man. 249 wins in Rupp Arena,” the team posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Overall, Calipari was the coach at Kentucky for 15 seasons and compiled a 410-123 record, with many of those victories obviously taking place in Rupp Arena. He also won a national championship in 2012.

However, the coach had fallen out of favor with the fan base over the past few seasons and had suffered a couple of embarrassing first-round exits in the NCAA Tournament. He decided to move on from the situation at the end of last year and landed on Fayetteville as his next stop.

It’s been a rocky start to the season for the Razorbacks, who started off SEC play with five straight losses and carried a 1-6 conference record into Saturday. This win certainly doesn’t make up for all that ground, but it’s got to be a big confidence booster that can hopefully get them going in the right direction.

Arkansas is next scheduled to face Texas on the road at 8 p.m. CT on Wednesday.

John Calipari pauses postgame interview, reprimands Zvonimir Ivišić, Billy Richmond for chirping at Kentucky fans

ESPN’s Alyssa Lang interviewed Calipari in the hallway not too long after the final buzzer. Players began to flood back into the locker room and there was some trash talk that ensued. Three players followed Calipari to Arkansas and one decided to talk trash to Big Blue Nation.

Zvonimir Ivisic was seen exchanging words with Kentucky fans along with Billy Richmond. Calipari paused his interview to tell them to cut it out. From there, it was a short response to the question Lang provided.

You can check out the full moment here.

“They played good,” Calipari said of Ivisic, Adou Thiero, and DJ Wagner — all three of which were Kentucky players last year. “They were excited to come back. Thank you.”

On3’s Griffin McVeigh contributed to this report.