Adjustments Calipari Can Make for Smoother 2026-27 Season with Hogs

With the NBA draft just around the corner, it's about time for Arkansas head coach John Calipari to take a look at the past season and figure out how best to adjust for the upcoming year from a personal and team approach, both on and off the floor.

Doing so will make a huge difference in how things are perceived around Arkansas.

Meet the Standard

This one is going to be hard. The standard at Arkansas before Calipari arrived was the Elite 8.

The Hogs got there two of the four seasons before under Eric Musselman. However, in his fourth overall season, Arkansas only advanced to the Sweet 16, although that year was padded by a win over No. 1 Kansas before falling to eventual national champion UConn.

Still, it wasn't quite up to standard, putting a lot of pressure on the following season, which turned out to be a total disaster. Despite a win over eventual Elite 8 qualifier Duke at Bud-Walton Arena in front of a sold out rowdy fan base, team chemistry fell apart and Arkansas fell to 16-17, making it easy for Hogs' athletics director Hunter Yurachek to let Musselman save face and walk despite a bit of perceived high profile trolling by Musselman's boss.

Calipari, with financial backing that far exceeded anything Musselman had available to make it to the Elite 8, came in with a chance to build a team in the image he wanted. That team was slightly heavy on Kentucky flavoring, but it was enough to have made a legitimate push at meeting the Elite 8 standard before Texas Tech's massive comeback was complete in overtime, leaving the Hogs just short.

This year, with limited production coming from the Razorbacks' big men, Arkansas took a step back. The Hogs barely made the Sweet 16, struggling with High Point for much of the game.

Fortunately for Calipari's team, Darius Acuff, Jr., an All-American guard, took control late with 36 points, squeezing the Razorbacks into the Sweet 16, 94-88. However, there was zero hope Arkansas was going anywhere after that.

Having built his team around guards ready for the NBA draft rather than a full team ready for the NCAA Tournament, the lack of an inside game made it easy for Arizona to dominate the Razorbacks, making for a miserably long night for the team and fans alike, 109-88, in a game that wasn't even that close.

However, now after several misses in recruiting regarding big men, Calipari has leaned heavily on recruiting high school players. Yes, he has several 5-star players, but none of are centers or even well anchored forwards.

Plus, he has openly admitted how hard it is to have a bunch of teenagers hold their own against grown men in SEC play and the NCAA Tournament. It's going to be difficult for this team to make it to the Sweet 16, which will be yet another step down for the program.

Perhaps, some way, Calipari will kick up a quality big man out from under a rock, but from the outside looking in, they are all gone. This is going to make living up to the standard almost impossible as the Hogs are in a weaker position this upcoming year down low than they were last season.

Front of the Jersey Matters

Calipari said last year that it's about the name on the back of the jersey that matters, not what's on the front. In other words, players should be about themselves and not the Arkansas Razorbacks.

He mentioned this in reference to guard DJ Wagner having a section of the game where he played well. Apparently, Wagner getting going again was more important than Arkansas getting a win over Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament.

Either way, it's not a philosophy that tends to sit well with the people of Arkansas. For them, both in regard to the Razorbacks and in everything they do, it is about the success of the team.

If David has a good day stacking boxes of tomatoes under the shed and running buckets in the field, it doesn't matter if those boxes go unsold or sell for a much lower price than expected at the sales barn that evening. If the team isn't doing well, individual stuff doesn't matter that much.

Acuff was a great player, but it didn't matter what the name was on the back of his jersey. If his name had been on the back of a Kentucky jersey, Hogs fans would have hated him like crazy.

In fact, while he had a lot of accomplishments, the lack of accomplishments as a team as far as the NCAA Tournament goes will push him down the line when it comes to how Arkansas fans remember him. It will soon become about how Calipari had a player that talented and could barely get to the Sweet 16.

Arkansas is about winning national championships. The longer it feels like the staff cares more about individual stats and accolades rather than winning championships, the more likely this experiment is going to end poorly.

Scheduling Philosophy Has to Change

Keeping in line with the idea that it's better to be selfish than to be about the team, there has to be a change in how the non-conference schedule is done. It's become clear over the years that Calipari would prefer to be in the Northeastern part of the United States any time he can.

If he can figure out a way to escape the South, he's lining it up. That's why, even though Arkansas has very little business playing in the New York City area, Calipari is going to give up a high profile home game to drag them up there every year.

Sure, national television crews have shown they will gladly come to Fayetteville to broadcast big games. However, Calipari has people to see and places to eat and pray, so the Razorbacks will probably give up yet another quality home game to head up north.

He already sold out Hogs fans on one game. Michigan State was supposed to come to Fayetteville this year as part of the only high profile home-and-home series agreed upon by Calipari. However, once Arkansas fans patiently awaited their turn after overpaying for a miserable non-conference home schedule last year, the game was discreetly taken away from Razorbacks fans as Calipari relocated the game from Bud Walton to Detroit with the excuse that he would be able to play it on Thanksgiving.

Here's the thing though. Thanksgiving happens in Arkansas as well.

It could have been played at Bud Walton. Just imagine the elongated holiday weekend that would have set up with Michigan State in the basketball arena on Thursday and the ability to stay in town for the return of the Golden Boot game against LSU the following Saturday.

Even if it had to be a neutral site, why essentially give the Spartans a second consecutive home game by playing down the street from their home court? Why not play in Kansas City, a city and arena that serves as one of the most likely landing spots for Arkansas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament?

The other option would be to play it in Dickies Arena in Fort Worth as one of the other first round sites. Sure, Calipari took Arkansas down the street from that arena to play TCU, so there's not as much to be gained by learning logistics, plus the gymnastics team is there on the regular for nationals, but at least it's something to sell Hogs fans on at a site they can reach.

At this point, if Michigan State is going to get back-to-back home games, Arkansas should get two at Bud Walton, plus a Dallas-Fort Worth area neutral site game in return over the next three consecutive years with no option to alter the plan.

There have to be multiple quality home and home games showing up in Bud Walton this year. Unless it takes place in DFW, there shouldn't be any other neutral site games outside of Michigan State on Thanksgiving.

The fans deserve it, but odds are low it will happen. Calipari wants to be in front of national media as much as possible, getting a chance to talk on shows the people of Arkansas often don't watch, rather than speak to local media.

That's why there will be at least two more big city dates in what Calipari considers glamorous sites that will be difficult for Arkansas fans to attend. It's what's best for him, and remember, it's about the name on back of the jersey, not the front.

If people think that's wrong, Calipari has offered for them to be urinated upon, as the rest of his quote goes.

Ease Up on NBA Draft Pick Bragging

Everyone is aware Calipari has had a lot of guys drafted. If they aren't, he will remind them at least three times over the next 24 hours.

That will soon be followed by how much money they made. However, that's not the brag he seems to think it is.

A large portion of those guys were going in the first round of the NBA draft if the only thing Calipari did was open the gym for shoot arounds and make sure the jerseys and shoes showed up each game day. Had there been a high school eligible draft for a lot of them, they would have gone in the first round without him.

That's because for pretty much his entire career, Calipari has had multiple Top 10 recruits on his team. The problem with that is a lot of them are perceived as being tied to eras of his career where favors, including questionable entry test scores, and cash were reportedly changing hands, which led to multiple sanctions by the NCAA.

Much of the Razorbacks fan base was regularly vocal about suspecting the same thing was happening at Kentucky that took place at UMass and Memphis. The Wildcats were perceived as just being more practiced and skilled at it, plus they are an NCAA basketball darling, unike the other two schools.

For reference, look what happened to North Carolina after the fake class scandal broke there. Now, Calipari can openly go buy players.

It's perfectly legal. So, he's loaded up the best of the best high school players, and when they go in the first round, he will brag about them also.

However, getting someone into the first round of the draft who was going to get there anyway isn't impressive. Getting those players national championship rings, that's a different thing.

The only national title Calipari has won was so loaded with NBA draft picks he could have played his own game of NBA prospects vs. NBA prospects. That's the level of talent it took to get him a national title.

That's the brag he needs to be able to have. Let's stop talking about the number of guys put in the NBA outside of recruiting situations, and bring the focus on developing those players into championship level monsters.

That's when it will be worth bragging about. That's when it will be impressive to Arkansas fans.

Leave 'Fugazi' Back in 2025-26 Season

Calipari's affinity for the Northeast and the streets of New York City, along with his Kentucky past, already make him difficult for a lot of Arkansas to relate. However, he doesn't exactly help himself when he starts drifting in "Mafia Cal."

Mafia Cal usually comes out when he's talking to the media about something the NCAA has done. That's when he draws inspiration from the movie "Donnie Brasco," a New York mafia flick from the mid-90s with names like Lefty Ruggiero, Sonny Black and Sonny Red.

A mafia hitman, Lefty, befriends a jewel thief named Donny Brasco. When presented with a ring Lefty wants to sell as payment from a club owner, Brasco says it's "Fugazi," which Italian-American slang that means it's fake or inauthentic. It's a fraud.

This is ironic because when Calipari gets in front of the people of Arkansas and starts saying this, he immediately begins to feel fake. He may be trying to honor his roots, although his last name already does that as everyone in Arkansas recognizes him as Italian-American by his surname, but when he starts saying this in press conferences, it comes off an inauthentic.

It feels like he is trying to convince people he's part of the mafia, when, presumably, he isn't. It barely comes off as more real than if he had said another famous word from the movie, "Fuggedaboutit

Everyone in Arkansas knows and respects his heritage. However, when he's running through press conferences and on television dropping fugazi, it makes him feel exactly what the word means.

It also draws him further from the people he is here to serve. When he goes out of his way to get into a specific type of church or restaurant when visiting the Northeast or even in Hot Springs, that is when he comes off as being true to himself.

So, quite simply, leave the mafia movie phrase in the past. It's uncomfortable to even write about it because it feels hitting on an awful stereotype or being insulting.

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