The college basketball world was absolutely floored when longtime Kentucky head coach John Calipari left Lexington to take the job at SEC rival Arkansas back in April. As far as coaching changes go, this one was seismic.
The game that so many college hoops fan are waiting for, Arkansas traveling to Rupp Arena for the first time since John Calipari left, is going to happen next year.
With the SEC going to 16 teams after the addition of Texas and Oklahoma is completed this summer, the conference schedules are more packed than normal. The SEC has decided to still play an eighteen-game conference schedule, even though other big leagues like the Big Ten and Big 12 are at twenty conference games.
That means that teams will only be able to play three teams in the conference home-and-home, as everyone will play each other at least once. Thankfully,
Normally, the biggest regular season games annually are Duke-UNC, Louisville-Kentucky and a few high-profile non-conference neutral site games. But, the most-anticipated game this upcoming season is likely going to be that Arkansas trip to Kentucky. I assume that ticket prices will be out of control as Kentucky fans look to show out as their Wildcats try to knock off their former head coach.
It will be interesting to see what kind of reaction John Calipari gets when he returns to Rupp Arena. On one hand, he had Kentucky as arguably the best program in college basketball for much of his tenure. In his first six seasons, Kentucky made the Final Four more than any other school with four appearances and lost in the Elite Eight in one of the other two years. But, Kentucky hadn’t been to the Sweet 16 since 2019 prior to his departure, and they lost to a 14-or-higher seed for the second time in three years this March when they were upset by Oakland.
Meanwhile, Kentucky hired former BYU coach and member of the 1996 National title team Mark Pope to succeed Calipari. It would be quite the boost to the start of his era if he was able to beat Coach Cal at Rupp Arena next winter.
The Arkansas job opened up when former head coach Eric Musselman left the Razorbacks for USC>
Dates and times for SEC conference games have not been released.
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