John Calipari jokes he was 'ready to strangle myself' due to Arkansas' three-point shooting

Despite trailing the Troy Trojans at the half, the Arkansas Razorbacks had a massive second-half effort to avoid being upset. It was a game that head coach John Calipari felt shooting played a major role in for the Razorbacks.

After the game, Calipari joked about wanting to strangle himself due to Arkansas’ three-point shooting. In particular, he called out that his big men were the ones making threes instead of the guards and wing players.

“Who are the guys that made the most? You four-man and your five-man,” John Calipari said. “That’s who made them, Adou [Thiero] and [Zvonimir Ivisic]. Then, we sprinkled in one or two others. But one had six and one had two or three, I don’t have a stat sheet in front of me. So, now you have eight and that’s from your four and five.”

For the game, Arkansas shot 10 for 23, or 43.5 percent from three-point range for the game. Ivisic was by far the most productive player Arkansas had from three, making six of seven shots from deep. Among guards, Boogie Fland led the Razorbacks with two made three-point shots.

“Normally, you’d have eight and that comes from your guards, your wings. Thank goodness, right? I told the fans out there, you had to watch the first half and say, ‘Oh my gosh, but we were doing everything right.’ We were moving the ball, we had it, boop, wide open miss,” Calipari said. “Everything inside out, the guy has it, miss. Another one here missed. I was ready to strangle myself, like, c’mon.”

Despite some struggles shooting from three, Arkansas outscored Troy by 17 points in the second half. That gave Arkansas a 65-49 win.

“Again, this is a good group. I am enjoying coaching them. I’m holding them to a high standard. I’m telling them that. I don’t back up. This is what it is. How do you finish a game? How do you massage the ball? How do you get open late? You can’t just jog around. How about making free throws late? We were seven for 14. What? We’re a really good free throw shooting team. How does that happen? So, we’ve got things to work on.”

John Calipari then went on to add some praise for Troy, comparing them to his UMass teams from the 1990s. In particular, for how physical and energetic the Trojans were throughout the game, putting pressure on Arkansas.

“But let me say this, anybody who wants to play Troy, I say have at it. I’ll be honest with you, I said it on the radio, they remind me of my UMass teams. They out-rebounded us. Four guys to the glass to go rebound, dive on the floor. Three different guys hit heads to try to get the ball. 50/50 balls they get 70 percent of them, and if they’re making shots — now, we wore them out with which is why we picked up — because if they’re making threes, doing what they’re doing defensively,” Calipari said. “And it was a little bit of a rugby match. Come on now. You drove and you got pushed…then our guys had to get physical. I said, ‘Whatever they’re doing to you, do to them. Whatever it is.’ They were good. Scott, he does a great job.”

Arkansas will be back in action on Monday night. There, they’ll take on Pacific in a home game where Calipari will look for more consistent shooting.