Coach Cal stresses patience, sends assistant out to preview big-time matchup

John Calipari knows there could be early speed bumps with his team a little banged up entering the season, down to just five healthy scholarship players at this stage. It’s a young group that has its eyes on the prize that comes in the spring, not anything that comes in the fall or early winter. Oh, and he’s sending an assistant coach out to preview a high-profile matchup.

Sound familiar?

No, you didn’t wake up from a long, deep fever dream that started seven months ago. It’s not October of 2023 instead of 2024. Coach Cal is just sticking with the hits in Fayetteville

SI.com’s Kent Smith certainly puts you in that time machine, though, writing a column this week for the Arkansas fansite with the headline “Fans Have Good Reason to Listen to Calipari’s Warning.” It starts with a few familiar words:

“John Calipari has been saying it for a while now, but it’s reached a higher level of reality. Arkansas fans may want to tamp down expectations, especially early in the season.”

Trade out Arkansas for Kentucky and we’ve been in those shoes time and time again. From there, the writer shares a quote from a recruit who watched practice and singled out the program’s ability to overcome injury issues, Coach Cal bringing the best out of the personnel available to him — while also pushing those NBA dreams, obviously.

“Yeah, it was a great experience to see how the guys practiced with such intensity during practice even though they only had five players [active],” four-star recruit Abdou Toure said. “The way Coach Calipari coaches his players to the highest of standards. We talked with the coaching staff about their proposed plan they have for me to make me a NBA player and a great person.”

Only had five players active, followed by this hilariously on-the-nose line by Smith after acknowledging one guy, Trevon Brazile, may return in time for Friday’s exhibition game vs. No. 1 Kansas to give the Razorbacks six scholarship pieces: “Of course, there’s still plenty of time for someone to trip over a rock or have an electric scooter accident.”

You’re not lying. Wait till the food poisoning or English proficiency exams throw you new curveballs. That first “haven’t seen ’em” is going to hit different from the outside looking in.

“This was a major concern for fans when Calipari voiced his new philosophy of limiting the number of players he wanted to carry on scholarship to maximize NIL while not wasting time training up players at the end of the roster who would likely transfer somewhere else at year’s end,” Smith wrote, highlighting Coach Cal’s quotes about keeping it at eight or nine core pieces while potentially throwing scholarships at walk-ons or bringing in really, really good graduate assistants — he had plenty of those in Lexington. They’ve even been hurt in that department (literally) with walk-on Lawson Blake popping an Achilles back in July.

It’s all too familiar, that point being driven home most when none other than Kenny Payne came out to preview Arkansas’ exhibition matchup against Kansas.

Nothing like hearing from your assistant coach going into a battle against the top-ranked team in college basketball.

Assistant coach Kenny Payne will meet with media at noon tomorrow to preview Friday’s Arkansas-Kansas exhibition.

— Curtis Wilkerson (@CurtWilkerson_) October 23, 2024

Although, the head coach did have something to say on Thursday, definitely not responding to backlash surrounding the scrimmage format that includes Bill Self saying he is “not anticipating it being something” that resembles “a real game.” Instead, it’ll be quarters rather than halves with no players allowed to foul out with ‘practice-type situational work.”

“Let me provide some clarity about our Kansas Exhibition game. This is a REAL exhibition game,” Calipari tweeted. “Bill Self and I both talked about what our teams need and we decided on quarters which will provide more situational opportunities. We are looking forward to an incredible atmosphere in Bud Walton Arena tomorrow night! Can’t wait to walk out of the home teams tunnel for the first time! Let’s do this!”

I’ll be honest, it’s pretty entertaining being on the other side of this.

February 1 is going to be interesting.