How Arkansas' 2025-26 Backcourt Stacks Up Against John Calipari's Best

John Calipari is one of the most accomplished coaches in the history of collegiate basketball, bringing three different schools to a total of six Final Fours and winning the 2012 National Championship at Kentucky.

He was the National Coach of the Year three separate times (1996 at UMass, 2008 at Memphis, and 2015 at UK), has had 11 seasons of 30 or more wins, and five seasons of 35 or more.

His record in producing NBA talent is unmatched, as well – he has put 58 players into the NBA through the draft, including 46 first-round picks and 24 lottery picks. Four of these players were taken first overall, including Derrick Rose at Memphis (2008, Chicago Bulls), and three more from Kentucky in John Wall (2010, Washington Wizards), Anthony Davis (2012, New Orleans Pelicans), and Karl-Anthony Towns (2015, Minnesota Timberwolves).

The next chapter in his legacy began last season when he departed Lexington and opted to take the head coaching job at Arkansas after Eric Musselman's departure. Calipari is known for his ability to recruit at the highest level, which has resulted in the amount of high-end talent that has come through his rosters. This year's class is no different, as he brought in two five-star guards with high pedigree in IMG's Darius Acuff and Overtime Elite's Meleek Thomas, amongst other prep and transfer portal stars.

Acuff, ranked No. 9 overall in the class of 2025 by On3, and Thomas, ranked No. 11, create the best freshman guard duo in the country, but this is far from Calipari's first experience with a young – but highly talented – backcourt. How do Acuff and Thomas compare to other top-notch twosomes that coach Cal has had throughout his career?

2016-17: De'Aaron Fox and Malik Monk – The gold standard of Calipari freshman backcourts, Fox and Monk, who both went on to very successful NBA careers, were a dominant group at the collegiate level, combining for over 36 points per game on a team that won 26 games and went to the Elite Eight. Fox ended up going fifth overall in the draft to the Sacramento Kings, while Monk went 11th to the Charlotte Hornets. The two were eventually reunited in Sacramento in 2022.

2009-2010: John Wall and Eric Bledsoe – Wall, who ended up being the first-overall player taken in 2010, formed an elite freshman guard duo with Eric Bledsoe, who played with other first-rounders in center DeMarcus Cousins and forward Patrick Patterson. Wall was electric in his only collegiate season, averaging 16.6 points, 6.5 assists, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.8 steals per game, putting on a show while doing so. Bledsoe was also very good, making the all-SEC Freshman Team by putting up 11.3 points, 2.9 assists, 3.1 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game. They won 35 games that year, but were upset in the Elite Eight by West Virginia.

2010-2011: Brandon Knight and Doron Lamb – Knight and Lamb are an underappreciated duo, mostly because they did not have the NBA careers some of the other Kentucky guards had, but they were still absolutely dynamic together. Knight put up 17.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game, while Doron Lamb added another 13.1 points per game, shooting 47% from beyond the arc. Knight was a one-and-done that went eighth overall to the Detroit Pistons, while Lamb stayed another season, winning a National Championship in 2011-12 with Anthony Davis. He was eventually taken in the second round by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2012 NBA Draft.

2023-2024: Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham, DJ Wagner – It feels like cheating to add all three, but the Wildcats were blessed with a trio of high-level freshman guards to start the 2023 season. Though it ended unceremoniously as 3-seed Kentucky fell to 14-seed Oakland in the first round, both Sheppard and Dillingham went on to be top-10 picks in the 2024 NBA Draft. Sheppard went third to the Houston Rockets, while Dillingham went eighth to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Wagner followed Calipari to Arkansas, where he hopes to be drafted after this season, though he will be competing with the aforementioned stars coming in from the prep ranks.

Honorable Mentions:
• 2015-2016 – Jamal Murray and Isaiah Briscoe
• 2014-2015 – Devin Booker and Tyler Ulis
• 2017-2018 – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Hamidou Diallo, and Quade Greene

So where do Acuff and Thomas fit in to this group of top-notch players? Obviously, it's too early to tell three months before the start of their inaugural season, but there is no doubt that the talent level is elite. Given the infrastructure around these two, with Arkansas adding transfers like Florida State's Malique Ewin and South Carolina's Nick Pringle, it's entirely possible that the Razorbacks see a high level of success behind the three-headed monster of Acuff, Thomas, and returner DJ Wagner. The SEC will be no easy task, of course, but Arkansas has the ability to compete at a high level behind the skills of their freshman duo.