Mark Stoops wishes John Calipari well despite 'blip' in their relationship

Perhaps the single biggest move in the offseason wasn’t that of an SEC football coach, but the departure of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari for the Arkansas job. On Thursday at SEC Media Days, Wildcats football coach Mark Stoops couldn’t avoid the question.

He had to have known it was coming, too.

Given his previous beef with Calipari, reporters were hoping Stoops, the normally mild-mannered and reserved coach, would give them some red meet to sink their teeth in on. No such luck.

Well, mostly.

“With coach Cal, I wish the best for him. Really,” Mark Stoops said. “He and I have had a really good relationship for a long time. There was one little blip on there, but we’re both big boys, we’re both friends and have spoken.”

The relationship still seems a touch frosty, like neither man fully got over what transpired. Stoops, though, did a nice job cordially wishing Calipari success at his next venture.

Which might beg the rather hilarious question … is Arkansas, in fact, a “basketball school?”

That was what triggered the “blip” between Stoops and Calipari in the first place. Calipari had loudly proclaimed that Kentucky was a basketball school back in the preseason in 2022. Stoops immediately and vociferously disagreed.

“Basketball school? I thought we competed in the SEC?” Mark Stoops tweeted at the time.

Stoops had further comments too, noting that Kentucky football wasn’t “born on third base,” seemingly suggesting success is harder to come by there than in the basketball program.

He defended his program pretty staunchly.

“When you start talking about my program and others that we compete against — me, I don’t do that,” Mark Stoops said. “I stay in my lane. So that’s in defense of my players, in defense of the work that we’ve done. And believe me, we want to continue to push. But don’t demean or distract from the hard work and the dedication and the commitment that people have done to get to this point. I don’t need to apologize for that, and I won’t.”

Though athletics director Mitch Barnhart intervened, there weren’t a whole lot of public make-good moments following the brief spat.

Stoops seemed ready to bury it on Thursday at SEC Media Days, though, now that Calipari is no longer competing on the same grounds.

“I’m sure he’ll be successful at Arkansas and wish him nothing but the best,” Mark Stoops said. “Matter of fact, his son, just saw Brad in Lexington a couple weeks ago, he was there recruiting or doing something and spent some time talking with him. So they’ll do very well.”