John Calipari voices displeasure with facing Bill Self again in NCAA Tournament: 'Why you gotta put me against him?'

The NCAA Tournament is set to tip off and in one of the opening matchups, there is a marquee game between the Arkansas Razorbacks and Kansas Jayhawks. That, in turn, is going to a pair of Hall of Fame coaches against one another in John Calipari and Bill Self.

Ahead of that game, Calipari made it clear that he isn’t thrilled with the matchup. During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, he praised Self. In particular, he highlighted how their careers have come together around the NCAA Tournament.

“We’re here in Providence,” John Calipari said. “A four-team tournament. Kansas, come on. Bill Self, he won his national championship against us and me. We won our national championship against them. So, we’ve won at Allen [Fieldhouse]. They had won at our place. Bill and I, when I left Kansas, he followed me at Kansas. So, he went into the role I was in.”

John Calipari was an assistant coach at Kansas until 1985 before he left to be an assistant at Pitt and later a head coach at multiple stops starting with UMass in 1988. Self, for his part, came into Kansas in 1985 before getting his first head coaching job in 1993. By 2003, he had returned to Kansas as the head coach. In 2008, he’d beat Calipari and Memphis for a national championship. Calipari got him back, though, beating Kansas in 2012 to win his own with Kentucky.

“Unbelievable the culture he’s built, the program, all of that stuff,” Calipari said. “He and I are friends. I hate playing people that I consider friends or know well. All these teams, why you gotta put me against him first game? So, we know what we’re up against.”

This first round NCAA Tournament matchup comes after John Calipari has had some recent struggles in the early rounds. Those issues date back to the end of his time at Kentucky. He hadn’t taken the Wildcats past the Round of 32 since their 2019 Elite Eight run. Along the way, Kentucky dropped games to Saint Peter’s, a 15 seed, Kansas State, a three seed, and Oakland, a 14 seed.

The game between Arkansas and Kansas is between a 10 seed and a seven seed. Unlike usual, however, Calipari has found himself as the lower of the two seeds. It’s also his first year with the Razorbacks. So, he knows that he has his work cut out for him if he plans on getting deep into this season’s NCAA Tournament.