In 2009, John Calipari arrived in Lexington as a hero. On Feb. 1, he may return as a villain.
Calipari will make his return to Rupp Enviornment on Feb. 1 when Arkansas faces Kentucky, per the SEC males’s basketball 2024-25 schedule that was launched on Tuesday.
Calipari led Kentucky to the nationwide title in 2012 and spent greater than a decade with the Wildcats earlier than his time in Lexington led to April following a tumultuous stretch that included a pair of first-round exits within the NCAA match over the previous three years. This would be the solely regular-season matchup between Calipari’s Arkansas squad and Mark Pope’s Wildcats within the 2024-25 season.
Editor’s Picks
1 Associated
Each coaches regrouped shortly of their new houses. Former five-star recruit D.J. Wagner adopted Calipari from Kentucky to Arkansas, which additionally added former Florida Atlantic star Johnell Davis. Pope additionally constructed his first Kentucky group with high-level transfers, together with former San Diego State star Lamont Butler.
This might be one of many greatest video games in faculty basketball this upcoming season. And, arguably, probably the most energized. When former Kentucky head coach Rick Pitino, then the top coach at Louisville, made one other journey to Rupp Enviornment in 2015, he was accused of giving the group the center finger — an accusation he denied after the sport.
Calipari will doubtless be met with the same hostility in his first recreation again after back-to-back losses to Saint Peter’s and Oakland within the opening rounds of two of the previous three NCAA tournaments left a bitter style for Kentucky followers.
There are different notable video games on the schedule, too. Texas and Oklahoma will kick off their first seasons within the SEC with highway video games on Jan. 4 towards Texas A&M and Alabama, respectively.
The Crimson Tide, backed by Wood Award contender Mark Sears, will play crucial league video games on the highway at Kentucky on Jan. 18 and at Auburn on March 8, which might have an effect on each the group’s SEC end and the postseason seed for an Alabama group with nationwide title aspirations.
However Calipari’s return to Rupp Enviornment would be the headliner for the SEC slate.
“Kentucky is the bluest of blue,” Calipari mentioned after he was launched in Fayetteville in April. “There’s only some faculties like that, and I hate to let you know … Arkansas is one in all them.”