Kentucky's second-half collapse leads to second-worst home loss of Calipari era

At halftime, this felt like anyone’s game. Kentucky trailed Arkansas by one, 41-40, but the two teams were trading punches. A Daimion Collins shot at the buzzer cut what was a six-point Arkansas lead with 5:32 to go to just one going into the break. Rupp Arena was buzzing and it felt like March, which was appropriate considering both teams are on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

And then the second half started. The Razorbacks came out on a mission, scoring the first basket, getting two steals and two subsequent breakaway dunks to push the lead to seven. Arkansas scored 11 points on its first five possessions of the second half to make it 52-43. Kentucky narrowed the gap to four, 54-50, but that’s as close as it would get. Over the remaining 13:29, the Razorbacks slowly pulled away to a 88-73 victory. It’s the second-worst home loss of the John Calipari era. Only the 20-point loss to Alabama in January 2021 was by a bigger margin. The Razorbacks shot an astounding 72% from the floor in the second half.

Afterward, John Calipari held a five-minute press conference, citing Arkansas’ hot shooting and Kentucky’s lack of rim protection as the primary causes for the loss. The Cats were also shorthanded in the backcourt, as Sahvir Wheeler was out after tweaking his ankle in practice earlier this week.

“They shot 72 percent in the second half,” Calipari said. “Come on. You’re not going to win a game if they’re shooting 72 percent. We tried some zone, we did some different things. We switched. They got downhill, and just no one in there wanted to body up, which is what they did to us. But we’ll learn. 

“They were way better than us today. We’ve just got to figure it out, and we’ve got a day off and we’ll come back and go.”

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Calipari “so disappointed” in Kentucky’s second-half performance

While the Razorbacks were red hot in the second half, Kentucky was lost. With Oscar Tshiebwe struggling and Daimion Collins on the bench, the Cats were outscored 28-10 in the paint in the second half, 46-28 over the entire game. Kentucky turned the ball over 15 times, leading to 23 Arkansas points. The Razorbacks burned the Cats in transition, with 20 fastbreak points. They had 16 dunks to Kentucky’s three.

“I was just so disappointed,” Calipari said of his team’s second-half performance. “Turnover, turnover, dunk, layup. I’m looking around, I’ve got to call a timeout a minute into the half, and literally like, come on, how did you lose that, how did you not get that ball? 

“But you know, that’s why I said, okay, here we are, let’s fight our way back. We did some good things and got it close, seven and six and five, but the game was a physical game. If you weren’t ready for that, you were going to get knocked off point.”

Tonight was Eric Musselman’s 200th career win. He is now 3-1 vs. Kentucky. This was the Razorbacks’ third straight win over the Cats. Junior guard Devo Davis, who sealed the win over Kentucky in Rupp in 2021, put it frankly after the game.

“I haven’t lost to Kentucky yet since I’ve been playing for Arkansas, so I for sure had some [confidence] coming in. Just knowing that the last time I played in Rupp with a team two years prior to this year, we came in and won, you know what I mean.”

Ouch.