John Calipari on Mark Pope: 'He's the right guy for that job'

After their 25-point embarrassing loss to Vanderbilt on Tuesday night, the Kentucky Wildcats will remain on the road to take on former Kentucky head coach John Calipari and his red-hot Arkansas Razorbacks team who is 15th in the country and very good on their home floor and will look to protect it against their Wildcats and give Calipari his second win over Kentucky at Arkansas.

Ahead of the big matchup, Calipari was asked his thoughts on Kentucky and Mark Pope following his teams four-point win on the road at Oklahoma. It's worth noting that the was asked this before Kentucky put together an embarrassing performance themselves. No matter how much of a wild season it has been this season, Calipari still believes in what Pope can do at Kentucky.

"They're doing great," Calipari said on Kentucky, before turning his attention to Mark Pope. "Mark is doing a great job, he is. For them to struggle and for him to get them going, he is the right guy for the job." Following his thoughts on Pope and Kentucky, Calipari was asked if the emotions for this game will be different than last season's matchup, where he returned to Rupp Arena. "It’s the next game. We’re in a different position. We kinda flipped the switch (last season vs Kentucky). We got them pretty good, but we were 1-6 (in SEC). I didn’t care who it was. We needed to beat somebody. Now, the only significance of the game to me is we need to keep winning.”

Calipari has his Arkansas team rolling, sitting in second place in the SEC, including with the best offense in the conference. Last season, Kentucky was the one who had the exciting basketball on-court product and were in a much better position than the Razorbacks. Now, the roles are somewhat reversed, as Kentucky would love to get a big road win, their biggest win yet of the season, to get their mindset back on track that they really can be a good team.

Either way, John Calipari once again had high praise for Mark Pope being the Kentucky head coach, and believes he is the right guy for the job, no matter how this year has gone in Lexington. Can Pope make those words mean something even more on Saturday against Calipari and Arkansas?