Hunter Yurachek to Arkansas crowd: 'You know we're not playing Kentucky, right?'

Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek had jokes for the Razorbacks fans on hand as John Calipari was introduced Wednesday. Having just taken Calipari from Kentucky, Yurachek made a reference to the Wildcats.

“Y’all know we’re not playing Kentucky tonight, right?” he quipped.

Calipari spent the past 15 seasons in Lexington and led the Wildcats to 12 NCAA Tournament appearances, four Final Fours and one championship. He’ll hope to find the same success in Fayetteville as he takes over a Razorbacks team coming off of a 16-17 finish in 2023-24.

Arkansas has formally announced Calipari as their 14th head coach in program history on Wednesday. He will take over in the place of Eric Musselman with him now leaving Kentucky after 15 seasons.

“This is a dream job. It was my dream job. Anybody in our profession looks at the University of Kentucky and basketball and says, ‘That is the bluest of blue.’ The last few weeks we’ve come to realize that this program probably needs to hear another voice, that the university as a whole has to have another voice giving guidance about this program.

“The fans need to hear another voice. We’ve loved it here, but we think it’s time for us to step away and step away completely from the program.”

We’ll see how the Calipari era plays out at Arkansas, but it’s clear there’s plenty of excitement for it.

John Calipari ‘refused’ Arkansas deal Sunday out of respect for national championship

John Calipari had an explanation as to why an official announcement of him taking the Arkansas coaching job took so long. Although it was reported Sunday evening that Calipari would become the Razorbacks next head man, the school didn’t announce the news until Wednesday morning.

Calipari appeared for the first time donning Arkansas gear later that day, speaking on the contract negotiations. He revealed that it was his decision to keep the news under the wraps, saying he didn’t want to take away from Purdue and UConn in the national championship.

“We talked Friday,” he said. “There was some stuff Saturday and Sunday back and forth. We didn’t talk contract more than 15 minutes total, maybe less. I refused to do anything Sunday or Monday because of the national championship game. That is those players, those coaches, those schools. They deserved it. Then when it leaked out — but you noticed neither one of us said one word.”