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John Calipari won't back down as NCAA bends its own rulebook

Razorbacks' coach calls out a seemingly broken system drifting without guardrails
Jacob Davis|
Arkansas Razorbacks coach John Calipari talks to forward Malique Ewin (12) about tucking his shirt in during the game against the James Madison Dukes at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark.
Arkansas Razorbacks coach John Calipari talks to forward Malique Ewin (12) about tucking his shirt in during the game against the James Madison Dukes at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark. | Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

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Arkansas Razorbacks

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When Arkansas Razorbacks coach John Calipari decides to hang up his blazer and call it a career, he'll go down as one of the last prominent figures willing to publicly challenge the direction of college athletics.

Love him or hate him, Calipari has long carried himself with a sense of conviction about what college sports are supposed to represent.

He's made a living off developing young men into strong-willed adults on and off the hardwood and wants to preserve that for generations of coaches who follow.

Over the past 48 to 72 hours, the sanctity of not only college basketball but amateur athletics as a whole is being challenged by allowing players with NBA experience to play against student-athletes.

Calipari didn't hold back his thoughts.

“If you put your name in the draft, I don’t care if you’re from Russia, and you stay in the draft you can’t play college basketball," he said.

The Naismith Hall of Fame coach continued to express his concern for the sport about upcoming lawsuits the NCAA can expect if it continues down its current path.

Someone will need to step in and put a halt to what college sports has turn into over the past five years or what fans have come to know as its favorite pastime will come to an unfortunate end.

The wheels have started to turn that way anyway as a report about former Louisville commit Trentyn Flowers being courted by more than a dozen college teams despite playing in the NBA the previous two seasons remains up.

While subsequent clarifications attempted to walk back parts of the report, the initial X post sparked a firestorm on social media, with fans openly questioning whether the concept of amateurism still exists in any meaningful form.

“‘Well, we don’t have a say over European players,’ well, you do if they’re playing college basketball,” Calipari said. “So that means you don’t have a say over high school kids. Whatever a high school kid does before he comes here, don’t you do one thing because there’s the suit.

“What you’re saying is, ‘If he’s in Europe they don’t have the same rules.’ What? If he puts his name in the draft, he can’t go to college. ‘He left his name in, well that’s different. He’s European.’ OK, then you’re not doing anything with a high school player.”

Calipari hasn't hidden his opinion on academic integrity in an era of constant movement via the transfer portal. While he doesn't believe transferring once is a bad thing, it happens.

When it becomes all about money with no cap and gown in sight college sports becomes nothing more than a glorified Boys and Girls Club league.

The Flowers' situation is no isolated case either.

Over the weekend, Nigerian center James Nnaji committed to Baylor and was immediately ruled eligible for the second half of the season with an additonal four years of eligiblity, despite being the No. 31 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.

Although Nnaji has never appeared in an NBA regular-season game, he has played professionally overseas since 2020.

“Early on, when it first came out with G League players, I wasn’t in favor of that either,” Drew told ESPN. “But again, we don’t make the rules and as we find out about things, we’re always going to adapt to put our program in the best position to be successful, because that’s what we get paid to do.”

With all the uncertainty about eligibility surrounding college basketball, the Field of 68's Jeff Goodman reached out for comment from the NCAA, and received a response about the group revising the rulebook when it comes to professionals looking to enter the college game.

This is an easy road, NCAA. Don't tell me about lawsuits," Calipari pleaded. "If you join a program at midseason then you cannot play that season. If you're in school and have to get yourself eligible that's ok. You can play the second term without playing in the first.

"If you go pro, I don't care what country you're from, if you leave your name in [the draft] you cannot play college basketball. If you transfer midseason, you can't play, you got to sit out. We can do this without Congress and Senate getting 60 votes. Let them sue us on that stuff."

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Jacob Davis
JACOB DAVIS

Jacob Davis is a reporter for Arkansas Razorbacks on SI, with a decade of experience covering high school and transfer portal recruiting. He has previously worked at Rivals, Saturday Down South, SB Nation and hosted podcasts with Bleav Podcast Network where his show was a finalist for podcast of the year. Native of El Dorado, he currently resides in Central Arkansas with his wife and daughter.

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