It has become fashionable to say that Arkansas surging from 0-5 in the SEC to an almost certain NCAA Tournament constitutes one of the best coaching jobs in John Calipari’s 33-year career, which is the kind of thing you’d put out into the world only if you have the memory of a firefly or a desperate need to defend something that never should have happened in the first place.
Here in the land of reality, Arkansas needing to beat South Carolina in the Wednesday lunchtime game at the SEC tournament to lock up an at-large bid is not much to brag about. Given the millions upon millions of dollars Arkansas spent to hire Calipari and then load up his roster with impact transfers and blue-chip freshmen, it should have never been in doubt.
But all that said, let’s fast forward to Selection Sunday. If you’re the fan of a No. 6 seed and you see Arkansas pop up as your first-round opponent? We’re not going to judge you for whatever swear words come out of your mouth.
Because even though Arkansas isn’t exactly a good team — and we saw why in its bizarre 72-68 win over South Carolina — there may not be a double-digit seed in the field with the potential to be as dangerous for any given 40-minute period.
It’s the frontcourt size that can beat you up on the boards.
It’s the ability to get downhill off the dribble with athletic wings.
It’s the experience of a few key players, including one who’s been in a Final Four and another who played in last year’s Elite Eight.
And let’s face it: It’s Calipari, who is in the rare position of entering an NCAA Tournament with nothing to lose.
Remember the last time that happened? It was 2014, when Kentucky left the SEC tournament as an underwhelming No. 8 seed and played for a national title three weeks later.
With the caveat that anything can happen in March, this Arkansas team doesn’t seem built for that kind of run.
Not only have the Razorbacks struggled to compete with the SEC’s top-tier teams this year outside of one magical night in Calipari’s homecoming to Kentucky, you need offense to go deep in the tournament. The reality is this Razorbacks team will statistically be one of the most inefficient in the entire NCAA field. Even against South Carolina on Wednesday, it went through a second half stretch of nearly 12 minutes without making a basket and almost blew the game. The next time the Razorbacks do something like that, their season will be over.
But if a few shots go down next week, Arkansas could absolutely be a surprise Sweet 16 team — which is kind of what they were supposed to be all along.
Despite the revisionist history around this Arkansas season, Calipari did not bring in players like Johnell Davis from Florida Atlantic, Jonas Aidoo from Tennessee and his Kentucky trio of D.J. Wagner, Adou Thiero and Zvonimir Ivisic just to squeak into the tournament.
This is a serious roster, including one key holdover in skilled big man Trevon Brazile and three freshmen who could have gone just about anywhere.
It didn’t come cheap, either. Though nobody but folks at Arkansas know the real numbers, the Razorbacks are believed to have spent more in NIL to put this team together than all but a handful of teams in the country.
Everyone can judge for themselves whether it should be considered a success for that group to get its act together after starting 0-5 in SEC play and get on the right side of the bubble late in the season.
It’s certainly better than the alternative. But when you’re talking about one of the most successful coaches of the modern era who has had some truly incredible coaching years at UMass, Memphis and Kentucky, we can go ahead and dispense with the fiction that this was one of them.
But now that the Razorbacks are in, it only takes two or three tournament wins for the narrative to flip entirely. That’s how the tournament goes. And that’s why Calipari, for all the times he underwhelmed in March, is not the coach you want to see when he’s on this side of it.
Because the one thing Calipari has always known is that the odds usually favor talent in this sport. When Arkansas shows up in the NCAA Tournament next week, it’s highly likely Calipari will have the more talented team — regardless of what the seeding says.
“Everyone put us in a coffin after 0-5, they just forgot the nails,” Calipari said on his postgame radio show last Saturday after beating Mississippi State.
Not only is it a great quote, it represents his greatest gift. No matter what, he fights, and his team usually follows.
If you really want to dig through the records and find Calipari’s best coaching jobs, it’s willing UMass from nowhere to the national spotlight. It’s going to an Elite Eight at Memphis with a team that didn’t have a single first-round draft pick. It might be his second year at Kentucky when he did not have a great roster by Kentucky standards and upset Ohio State and North Carolina to get to a Final Four.
That’s the stuff people don’t remember. They think about the dominant teams, some of whom got tripped up in March when it seemed like the path was clear. But it’s an entirely differently mindset for him in a situation like this where it’s practically a free roll in the NCAA Tournament and there’s no real consequence to losing early.
That’s not to say Arkansas is primed to do something special next week. This is a deeply flawed team, and it hasn’t shown the ability all season to beat elite teams despite having a lot of opportunities to do just that in the SEC.
But it’s still a group with more talent than similarly seeded teams and a coach who has pulled off some pretty impressive stuff before in March. Whoever draws the Razorbacks in the first round shouldn’t be happy about it.
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