PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As his pre-NCAA Tournament press conference was winding down at the Amica Mutual Pavilion on Wednesday, John Calipari wanted to make sure he landed all of his good lines.
He’d already slipped in that he predicted his team would play Kansas, the school where he started his career and twice played against in the NCAA Tournament final.
But he wasn’t done working the room. So Calipari, who is in his first season at Arkansas, asked the assembled media in front of him:
“Where do you think I thought they would put us?”
Several people answered “Lexington” in a messy sort of unison followed by chuckles.
After 15 years, leading the Wildcats and an unharmonious departure from Kentucky, he assumed the NCAA selection would place his team at the subregional at Rupp Arena. The selection committee calls them coincidences, but they always seem to happen. Sending Calipari back to Kentucky wouldn’t have surprised anyone.
“And they didn’t?!” he said raising his voice a little for effect. “When I saw we weren’t there, I’m like, wow, somebody must have been sick and went to the bathroom or something for them not the put us there.”
It was, as it always is with John Calipari, a performance.
He raised his arms in celebration. He bit his hand three times. In his 16-minute set, he was part politician, part salesman and a part motivational speaker. He’s older now. His hair is grayer. But he sounds the same as he always did at UMass, in New Jersey, at Memphis and in Lexington.
When there’s a microphone in front of him, Calipari knows what answers he’s going to give. The questions are irrelevant. He’ll have a theme or themes he wants to hit and will find a way to craft his answers to get to it. Whether that’s captivating or infuriating depends on the day and depends on the listener.
Calipari is a Hall of Famer and the active leader in NCAA Tournament victories, but on Wednesday, his theme was Arkansas being an underdog. The No. 10-seed Razorbacks will face No. 7 Kansas at 7 p.m. on Thursday. It’s been a long time since one of Calipari’s teams truly fit that description. As one of the most resource-rich teams in the country, Kentucky was never really an underdog. And Arkansas is unlikely to be one for long.
But in his first season in Fayetteville, the Razorbacks have battled injuries and a lack of depth. They lost their first five SEC games and had to finish 5-2 in their last seven games just to land a spot in the field.
And even at 20-13, as the NCAA selection show progressed, Calipari was nervous. More than three-quarters of the bracket was revealed before Arkansas popped up on the No. 10 line in Providence.
“I’m like, ‘Could they possibly (leave Arkansas out) when four teams that got in were below us in the SEC? They can’t do it. Can they do it? And we got in,” he said. “Then I started breathing.”
He was still breathing normally as he sat at the podium in Providence and relished being the hunter.
“I’m back to the roots of the underdog,” he said. “All I’m thinking about is where we were, threw us in the coffin, forgot the nails. We bust out somehow. No chance of the NCAA Tournament and all of a sudden, we’re here.
“I have had real fun with this team, mainly because they’re great guys. We had to play without our two leading scorers for three or four weeks,“ he continued. ”This team found a way that became one heartbeat and that was so enjoyable and rewarding for me.”
On Thursday, John Calipari will coach in the NCAA Tournament in Providence for the first time in almost 30 years. Here, he shouts at his team during the first half of first round 1996 NCAA Tournament game vs. UCF on March 14, 1996. UMass won 92-70. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)ASSOCIATED PRESS
While the NCAA didn’t send him to Lexington, they did build in several familiar subplots into Arkansas’ trip to Rhode Island. The Razorbacks will open against Kansas, Calipari’s first employer. Bill Self’s Jayhawks beat Calipari’s Memphis Tigers in the 2008 NCAA Championship and then Kentucky beat Kansas in 2012.
If the Hogs prevail, he’ll likely face Rick Pitino and St. John’s. Pitino’s Kentucky teams beat UMass in the 1992 Sweet Sixteen and the 1996 Final Four. And the game is at the Providence Civic Center where Calipari’s first Final Four run began.
The opportunities for nostalgia and reflection were there, but even at 66, Calipari didn’t want to reflect on prior seminal moments in his career because he hoped he this could be another one, for him and his players.
“Every one of these players was at a dark point at one point or another. Really dark place. Questioning: Can I play? Questioning everything. The first battle you have is with yourself,” he said. “This experience of being in a dark place and overcoming it is going to be with you for the rest of your life and when you’re in a dark place you know you can bust out of it.
“We have had those life lessons with this group. It’s been rewarding,” he added. “It will be really rewarding if we play well tomorrow.”
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