History Repeats Itself: John Calipari Attributes Tennessee Loss to Canceled Shootaround

I can already feel the Mean Girl memes hurled in my direction. Razorback fans are queuing up the GIF featuring the tagline, “Why are you so obsessed with me?” in preparation to flood my inbox. I fully admit this is a Kentucky Sports blog and posts featuring Arkansas basketball should be few and far between, if present at all. I promise this will not be the norm. However, it is hard to completely ignore the stark difference between Mark Pope’s SEC opener and the one John Calipari’s team put on display Saturday.

Both Kentucky and Arkansas faced off against an undefeated top-10 opponent to kick off league play with the ‘Cats taking on No. 6 Florida at home and the Hogs traveling to Knoxville to battle No. 1 Tennessee. By now, you are well aware that Kentucky won a tremendous high-scoring college basketball game, but in case you turned off ESPN after the win, the Vols put a beatdown on Arkansas, winning 76-52.

Let’s start with the easiest comparison. Arkansas scored 52 total points against Tennessee. Kentucky, on the other hand, scored 52 points in the first half against Florida.

Arkansas has two players currently projected to be first-round NBA picks in Boogie Fland and Adou Thiero. They also have two players previously listed high on mock draft boards in DJ Wagner and Zvonimir Ivisic. Kentucky might have a second-rounder if they’re lucky, and yet, Kentucky put up one of the most efficient offensive performances by any team all season and Arkansas performed somewhere on the other end of the spectrum.

But it gets weirder, and yet all too familiar.

Calipari chose not to have a shootaround because 1:00 p.m. was too early

After the game, Calipari told the media he chose not to have a pregame shootaround with his team. The reason? It was a 1:00 p.m. but their body clocks said it was noon because Fayetteville is in the Central Time Zone. And that was way too early.

Cal said: “The one thing I would do different in this game, and all night I tossed and turned, we didn’t do a shootaround today. And I just felt our body time is noon; pretty early. If I had to do it over again, we would have had a shootaround because we had three or four guys, like, kinda no-show. So, basically, they slept, had breakfast, and never really…you know.”

Reminder: Kentucky played at 11:00 a.m. both local time and body clock time and still scored 106 points.

Here’s another video from the archive that might give Big Blue Nation chills or belly laughs depending on your personality. In 2022, right after losing to Tennessee in the SEC tournament, Calipari explained his team’s struggles by admitting he chose to…yep…not to have a pregame shootaround.

Here's John Calipari a day after Kentucky lost to Tennessee at the SEC Tournament…. He talks about the Cats regrouping… and says his decision to not have a shootaround before yesterday's game wasn't a good one. pic.twitter.com/cteVjHPj7w

— Kent Spencer (@WHAS11Kent) March 13, 2022

Again, this isn’t meant to throw rocks at the former guy and exalt praise on Mark Pope. Okay, maybe it is a little. But considering Kentucky was extremely close to having Calipari back for a 16th season with a roster nearly identical to that of Arkansas, you can’t help but appreciate the new chapter Pope has delivered. Sure, his ‘Cats lost to 20 to Ohio State, a team not nearly as good as Tennessee. The Vols are a great team and could they very well run Kentucky off the floor at Thompson Boling Arena just like they did the Hogs.

But then again, maybe they won’t. If nothing else, Pope will most certainly have a pregame shootaround.