John Calipari shares apologies to his wife, Hunter Yurachek amid Arkansas struggles

It’s been a difficult stretch to open up SEC play for the Arkansas Razorbacks, as they’ve struggled amid a five-game losing streak. It was a streak that was finally snapped on Wednesday when head coach John Calipari earned his first SEC win at Arkansas by beating the Georgia Bulldogs.

After the game, Calipari shared some thoughts on breaking that losing streak. In particular, he put an emphasis on accountability. That included sharing how he apologized to his wife and Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek amid those struggles.

“I’ve got to hold them accountable while I’m picking them up,” John Calipari said. “Being positive, hugging them, but holding them accountable. You’ve got a job to do. I just love the spirit of the team and it’s our chance to write our own story with how this thing finishes.

“And I told my wife, I’m sorry I put you through this stuff. I told Hunter, I’m sorry I put you through this stuff. Told the fans, sorry I put you through this stuff. But, you know what? Thinking about it for me, I’ve been so blessed my whole life. My whole life. People look at me and say, ‘How in the world?’ I can’t go crazy over a bump in the road. I can’t. I’ve been too blessed.”

Calipari and Arkansas came into SEC play feeling relatively confident, having only lost twice in non-conference play. However, they had a very difficult start to conference play, with Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Florida to open up the losing streak. After that, the Razorbacks would drop games against LSU and Missouri before finally beating Georgia.

It was a close 68-65 win for Arkansas. Calipari saw his Razorbacks go down at the half, trailing by 12 points after 20 minutes. They bounced back, though, and scored 42 in the second half to win the game. That was despite only making 3/23 three-point shots. Winning both the turnover and rebounding battle became crucial with shots not falling.

“The second thing is I want this to make me a better coach. I want this to give me some ideas of — this is when, when you win 30 in a row — which I’ve done a couple of times — but it’s a totally different feel than what we went through,” Calipari said. “So, this will be for me, and I told them, if it’s gonna make me a better coach going through this, it’s going to make them better players going through this, but it’s hard. You want to win every game. Come on. You know me as a coach and what I’ve done and what the expectations are the moment I step in… This is a good thing. I’m just happy I’m here. I want to say I’m happy I’m going through this, but I’m really not.

“But what I am is let me learn from this and make sure I stay focused on these kids. Make sure — I call them kids. Some of them are 23 years old. They’re still my kids, but make sure that I’m focused on them and getting their mindset right because they’ll be able to look back on this experience 20 years from now, five years from now, and be able to take things from it where adversity hits. You know and I know it hits all of us. It hits us in different ways. How do you deal with it? What does it do to your attitude? Can you stay positive? Can you stay up? Can you stay focused? Can you keep grinding? Like I said, I’m happy we won a game for them, the players. We needed to get off the snide.”

On Saturday, John Calipari and Arkansas will be back in action against Oklahoma.