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Arkansas

John Calipari calls out team following blowout loss vs. Tennessee: 'We had 3 or 4 guys no show'

IMG_0985by:Griffin McVeigh•01/04/25•

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John Calipari Arkansas
Arkansas, not Kentucky, head coach, John Calipari, via Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

SEC play did not get off to the best start for Arkansas under John Calipari. Expectations were high heading to Knoxville but Tennessee wound up with a comfortable 76-52 win. Not how the Razorbacks wanted to begin their conference play journey.

Following the game, Calipari called out his team while taking some blame at the same time. He revealed Arkansas did not have a shootout before the game and players stepped on the court cold. Calipari says they had “three of four guys basically no-show” as a result.

“The one thing I would do different in this game,” Calipari said as he slammed a fist into the desk. “And all night, I tossed and turned. We didn’t do a shootaround today. And I just felt our body time is new pretty early. If I had to do it over again, we would have had a shootaround. Because we had three or four guys basically no-show. So basically, they slept, had breakfast.”

There was not too much of a layoff for the Hogs, last facing Oakland on Dec. 30. Just five days separated them from the last game and Calipari must have thought his team was equipped enough to start SEC play without a shootaround.

Of the five Arkansas starters, just two of them finished in double figures. Johnell Davis played 25 minutes off the bench and did not have a point to his name, going 0-4 from the field. While Tennessee is the No. 1 ranked team in the country, Calipari’s team will not beat many teams with that kind of production.

But facing off against a Rick Barnes-led Tennessee squad, specifically, requires an extra kind of effort. Calipari knows Arkansas did not display as such on Saturday afternoon.

“You play this team, you better be ready coming in to fight,” Calipari said. “I don’t mean fist fight. I mean battle. You better be first to the ball, you better be blocking out, you better run and get some free baskets or it’s going to be a hard game for you. And we didn’t.”

Arkansas has another ranked opponent next on the schedule, with Ole Miss coming to town. Tipoff on Wednesday is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT, giving Calipari plenty of time to organize a shootaround for his team. Hopefully, they come out a little faster and get their first SEC win of the season.