John Calipari wants to improve the atmosphere at Rupp Arena

You can’t expect Rupp Arena to be rocking for exhibition or early season games, but John Calipari sure wants to try. After last night’s 111-53 win over Kentucky State, Calipari brought up the atmosphere at Rupp during his postgame radio show, telling listeners he wants Rupp to be as rowdy as Citizens Bank Park in Philadephia has during the Phillies’ postseason run.

“The greatest thing, I’m watching the Phillies game and I’m watching that in Philadelphia,” Cal said. “What do you think I’m noticing? The fans are going nuts and I’m like, we’ve got to get Rupp Arena, I’ve got to — I remember a couple of games where I said, if you’re in here, remember the last five minutes everybody stands. Don’t care how old you are, you’ve got to stand the last five minutes.”

“As we get going and I think people fall in love with this team and who they are and what they’re about and how they handle things, we’ll get that.”

“This is kind of like a sacred place, Rupp Arena”

The announced attendance last night at Rupp was 18,413, but that apparently was a gross overestimate. Again, that’s not surprising or alarming. It was a Thursday night exhibition game and three of Kentucky’s top players were out. But, with the regular season tipping off on Monday and the competition only getting tougher moving forward, Calipari clearly wants to pump some energy back into Rupp.

“Why do you think everybody’s excited when they walk in? You’ve got all these people in here. And you think, ‘If we could ever pull this off, I’ll remember this when I’m 90.’ So, coming in here playing, this is kind of like a sacred place, Rupp Arena.”

As SEC basketball has gotten stronger, court storms have become commonplace. Last season, Arkansas fans rushed the court after beating No. 1 Auburn in Bud Walton Arena, with Eric Musselman famously tearing his shirt off in the process. As a result, the Razorbacks had to pay a $250,000 fine. Without mentioning any teams by name, John Calipari said one of the things he loves about Kentucky is fans would never storm the court.

“I just ask you, if we beat the No. 1 team in the country, would you run out on the court? Would you take down the — No. You expect it. You’d be cheering. ‘Yay, it’s great, we beat them,’ and all that but you ain’t charging the court. We don’t have to worry about paying that fine. This is Rupp Arena.”

Engaging with students

What Calipari plans to do to improve the atmosphere in Rupp remains to be seen; however, he did say he’s enjoyed getting feedback from UK students. Last month, Cal spoke at a student sports business conference at Rupp and had so much fun he’s reaching out to the university for more opportunities to engage.

“There were 400 students in there and I got to speak to these 400 students. It was a student-driven thing and when I saw their eyes and watched them and how they were engaged, I came back to my office and said, call the business school, call the communications school, you call whoever. If they want me to speak to their students, I’ll do it. So we’ve got a couple of those going where you get a chance for the back and forth.”

Next week, Calipari will speak with marketing majors, which he joked should be an easy gig because he majored in business marketing at Clarion. Maybe the group can brainstorm ways to inject life back into Rupp? The obvious answer is putting more students around the court, but the odds of that happening are low given the amount of money those seats pull in. So, why don’t we just start by selling alcohol?