Will Last Game of Hogs' Season Be Last Chance to Get Under Calipari's Skin as Kentucky Coach?

Timeline of events, clues hidden in Wildcats' schedule, suggest it might be

Author:
Kent Smith
Updated:
Mar 2, 2023 1:03 PM EST
Original:
Mar 2, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – While it seemed a little far-fetched when the season started and might be a little harder to digest now than a few weeks ago, there’s very good reason for Arkansas fans to buy up every ticket available regardless of cost for the final game of the season.

That’s because it's still possible this could be their last chance to lose their minds again should head coach John Calipari get thrown out of the game Saturday.

Giving Calipari a hard time is as natural for Razorback fans as holding a glass of sweet tea dripping in ice sweat in one hand while dropping in the perfect cornhole shot with the other.

However, despite everything that has transpired over the past two weeks or so, there's still a chance Arkansas faces him as the head coach of Texas next year instead of at Kentucky.

For the Wildcat fans reading this, we all can hear what you're saying without actually hearing what you're saying.

"But, but, but, the coach at Texas is doing a really good job and they're surely going to give it to him. Coach Cal is here winning and we love him so much."

Yes, Rodney Terry is doing an awesome job as the interim coach over at Texas. He has taken what Chris Beard set up and kept it rolling.

However, did you notice that the paragraph above says he's doing a really good job as the "interim" coach? With the way he is coaching this Longhorns team, if he were the guy, that interim tag would already be gone now that they've had a full two months to see what he can do.

Terry is proving himself too much to other teams that pay way more money and are light years more invested in basketball than Texas to not go ahead and lock him up if he's the man who's going to get the gig.

What this looks like is Texas offered the job to Calipari at their weakest point and at a time when no one could have blamed Calipari for wanting to get away from the insanity that is Lexington around basketball season.

The athletic department had no idea Terry was going to do what he's doing. They were just hoping he wouldn't lose any recruits while they brought in someone who knows how to dominate the SEC to take the helm.

As for Kentucky fans loving Calipari? Yeah, now.

Wildcats fans need to revisit their three weeks ago selves.

If "Big Blue Nation could have just ended the season immediately after the Arkansas game in Rupp Arena – you know, the one where they bailed on Calipari and his Wildcats with four minutes left – and sent Cal packing while they looked for the next great coach, they would have jumped all over it.

Instead, that's around the time Calipari suddenly became focused again and got the Wildcats back on the winning track.

Now, if there's anything SEC fans need to know about how distracting seeking and negotiating a new job can be, look no further what happened at Liberty when Hugh Freeze started getting the hots for Auburn like they were a Tampa call girl.

Freeze took down Arkansas in Razorback Stadium and his burner phone apparently started humming with possible options that included Auburn.

Liberty never won another game, not even against a hapless New Mexico State team that just beat the brakes off the Flames, 49-14. Freeze mentally was elsewhere and it showed on the field.

From the day Beard was fired on Jan. 5 through the Georgia game on Feb. 11, Kentucky was 6-5. There was legitimate talk of them not making the NCAA Tournament.

If you look at the most shocking losses of the conference season, they line up with when he would have been first approached with the offer and when he would have had to decide whether to formalize the agreement.

Remember that stunning loss to South Carolina at Rupp that just blew everyone off their feet they were so taken aback? That was just a few days after Beard was fired.

How about the blowout loss to Arkansas in Lexington followed an inexplicable loss to a Georgia team that got rolled by 49, 32 and 32 the next week at a point that would have been a reasonable passage of time for specifics to be worked out and ultimately decided upon.

Two losses at the beginning, including one unexplainable. Two unexplainable losses at the end.

That's losses to three of the six worst teams in the SEC. Once the final standings are locked after this weekend, it could turn out to be three of the five worst teams in the conference.

Then look at what happened afterward.

Something immediately changed. The Wildcats went 4-0, beating a Mississippi State team that was one of the hottest teams in the league at that time, curb stomped what was a Top 10 Tennessee team, and ran through Florida and an Auburn team that took No. 2 Alabama to overtime Wednesday night like they didn't belong on the court.

It's evident something abruptly changed in Lexington and it feels more like it changed in Calipari than it did with the players.

It could be that he decided to not take the job.

In that case, the story to save face for all parties would be that he was never offered, but Texas would be guilty of absurd negligence if that wasn't the first call athletic administrators made.

For the record, when you see a lot of smoke between a school and another coach and the story afterward is there never was an offer, that doesn't mean the school didn't have a guy reach out to that coach's guy and that guy have the coach mull it over and send back his thoughts. It just means a contract didn't end up on that coach's desk to be signed.

Of course, the other option is that a formal offer was made, Calipari came to terms with Texas and he was finally free to focus on his team and trying to make one last run at Kentucky before he straps on a burnt orange tie and strolls in as a visitor to Rupp Arena.

So, long story short, if you're an Arkansas fan, hopefully you got your ticket, you grabbed that last piece of poster board down at the local Dollar General to make your sign, and you're all set to give it to Calipari one last time out of respect for his competitiveness and a general good-hearted disdain that all Razorback fans have for Kentucky.

It might be your last chance.

And you wouldn't want to miss it if it is.