John Calipari reveals change in players’ mindset that's led to Arkansas' success

Arkansas has gotten out of their own way enough to get themselves up on, and nearly off of, the bubble for the bracket.

John Calipari discussed the Razorbacks’ improvement following their 92-85 win this weekend over No. 15 Missouri. He said his team has gotten better about playing with and for one another as well as better about playing to win rather than to not lose.

“Again, they’re trying to figure out who they are. It’s hard to be aggressive when you’re in your own space. When you’re in our space, you can go do whatever you’re doing,” Calipari said. “You know how we want you to play. Go play. You’re going to make mistakes. Next. Next play. Keep going. But you’re into us, the scout. You’re into us – effort and diving and doing it.”

“We had guys that were either trying to play perfect, you ready, or playing not to lose. You know prevent defense in football? It prevents you from winning. And, in basketball, when you’re playing not to lose? Eight out of ten, you lose,” said Calipari. “You got to play to win. You got to stay aggressive. You got to make the plays that are there. Yes, you’ve got to work the clock but you’re playing to win. You’re working the clock for a reason. You want ’em to foul you and then you go to the line and you make two.”

Arkansas had still lost three of four coming into the win on Saturday. However, all three were to top-ten teams, two being on the road, with all of them coming by single digits. That’s improvement, including the second-half comeback win over Mizzou, from where they’d been as they’re now at 4-3 in February after being 1-6 in January.

Calipari credited his team for that growth over the course of conference play. He also credited their fanbase for staying with them too while calling on them again with four games to go, which starts this week at home against Texas on Wednesday.

“These kids? They’re resilient,” Calipari said.

“Let me say it again to the fans. They’re resilient because we’ve struggled. I mean, we just lost three in a row – now, to really good teams but we still lost three in a row. But they were resilient, they were here,” said Calipari. “I’m begging them to come back for this Texas game because it’s going to be just as hard. It’s not what they did to Missouri. It’s what they did to my kids – to build them up, to pump them up, to keep them going. That’s what that building is and, I’ll tell you what, they were great today.”

The Razorbacks have come a long way over the last three weeks with them now trending to be in the NCAA Tournament. Still, that’s with a few games left to go ahead of the conference tournament as well as Selection Sunday.

“Look, everybody watching this team knows we’re getting better. Now we just got to finish,” Calipari said.