John Calipari shares message that sparked Johnell Davis, Arkansas

The Arkansas basketball team has now won back-to-back road games and three of its last four contests following a five-game losing skid to open SEC play.

Finally John Calipari has his bunch playing closer to its potential. A simple text message might have done the trick.

“I sent them all a text that basically talked about you have to go through failure if you’re ever going to have success,” Calipari said. “You have to walk through those gates. You’ve got to deal with failure, and that’s what we were dealing with. We lost a bunch of games.”

Arkansas used 24 points by Johnell Davis to power past Texas on the road on Wednesday night. It was a second straight win away from home.

And Arkansas will really get a chance to make a statement on Saturday with No. 3 Alabama coming to town.

“Proud of the kids,” Calipari said. “Told the TV at halftime, I love coaching this team now. How about they struggled like that and stuck together?”

Davis’ resurgence, in particular, has been massive for the Arkansas program. He has scored at least 18 points in each of the last three games. He’s also grabbing rebounds, dishing out assists and coming up with steals.

Calipari’s message seems to have gotten through to him the clearest.

“Well what I’m telling him and all these guys, the fight you have is if you miss two shots don’t act like you come out every time you make a mistake,” Calipari said. “The battle is within you, that I’m shooting another one and I’m shooting another one. If you make a bad play you have to have the mental strength to go on to the next play. If you don’t, there are no alibis.

“Now what he’s done, he’s busted through all that. You know what was great today? He’s on the court talking to Karter (Knox) when Karter fouled like, ‘We need this clock to run, you’re fine, just keep playing. Don’t foul.’ Wow.”

That kind of maturity can take you a long way. And Davis isn’t the only one starting to get it at Arkansas.

“DJ (Wagner), the way he’s playing, wow,” Calipari said. “Adou (Thiero) made a few plays. He was sick as a dog, probably shouldn’t have played, but he made a couple plays. [Trevon Brazile] played. We have a full roster playing right now. Billy (Richmond), how about that last block out of nowhere? Who could make that play other than him? You’ve got to show me.

“They’re fighting. They know, I still think we’ve got a ways to go to reach where we should be. I do. But I’m just happy we won this, the last game on the road. Two road wins in this league? Two road wins tells you we’re not too bad.”