Karl-Anthony Towns wishes Coach Cal -- 'a father to us' -- well at Arkansas, but 'I'm always going to be a Wildcat for life"

Karl-Anthony Towns was like the rest of us that night during the Final Four, breaking our thumbs while refreshing social media desperate to figure out just what in the heck was going on.

John Calipari wasn’t actually leaving Kentucky for Arkansas, right? There is just no way he’d give up the throne in Lexington for Fayetteville to become a conference rival, trading out blue for red.

Right? Wrong.

“I was as confused as everybody,” the former No. 1 pick told Paul Finebaum this week.

Now that the dust has settled and the coaching carousel has finally stopped spinning out of control, Coach Cal is settled in with the Razorbacks while Mark Pope has taken over the Wildcats in a relatively seamless transition. It’s starting to feel somewhat normal after living in the Twilight Zone for a couple of months this spring.

For a guy like Towns, who became Calipari’s third No. 1 overall pick at Kentucky behind John Wall and Anthony Davis after leading the Wildcats to an undefeated regular season and 38-0 start, it’s complicated. On one end, the new Arkansas coach was the person who helped him become the man and professional he is today — like a father figure, he says.

That relationship will never go away, no matter where he coaches or the success he has moving forward.

“It’s weird,” Towns said. “It’s gonna be weird not seeing him on the sidelines at Rupp Arena, but I think for all the players before, I think I speak for them when I say he’s our coach. He was more than just a coach to us with UK on his chest, he was like a father to us. We all got so much respect and love for Cal. We just want to see him in life do amazing things, for sure.”

On the other end, though, his experiences with Calipari came in Lexington wearing blue and white. Those memories were a product of being a Wildcat at the University of Kentucky.

And that’s how it’ll always be, too, even if it means Coach Cal is now an SEC rival by definition.

“From my point — and I told him, as well — I bleed blue. I’m always going to be about UK, I’m always going to be about Kentucky,” Towns told Finebaum. “I’m always going to be a Wildcat for life. He knows it’s going to be weird, it’s going to be a weird little relationship to go on, him being there and me all day, every day at UK.”

In his eyes, though, those two things can go hand in hand. He can appreciate Calipari and the impact he’s made on his life and the Kentucky basketball program while also being excited for what’s to come for the Wildcats under Mark Pope.

Coach Cal set a championship expectation when he arrived in Lexington, continuing the standard of excellence Kentucky basketball demands as the winningest program in history. Pope has embraced that, making it clear he understands the assignment from day one: hanging banner No. 9.

“We’ve got an amazing new coach, as well, and I think he set our program up for success for years and years to come,” Towns said. “Thanks to Cal, UK is going to continue being the blue-chip program, and it’s going to continue to do what it does best, which is make NBA players and be always in the running for a national championship.”

Envy our past, fear our future? I think we’ve heard that somewhere before.

Towns is excited to be a part of both.