John Calipari has seen enough good and bad basketball over his legendary career to know when a team has to go back to the basics and reteach the fundamentals.
He also knows what a team that’s not focused looks like, and you get the sense that he knows exactly what was wrong with his Arkansas Razorbacks on Tuesday against Winthrop.
Any good SEC team should never have trouble with a Big South conference team, and that’s meant with no offense to Winthrop. Still, the Eagles gave the Razorbacks everything they could handle, and more, in what ended up being an 84-83 win by Arkansas.
After the game, Calipari was clearly upset. Yes, he gave Winthrop credit for coming out and not playing afraid of the Razorbacks, but he also derided his team for playing a brand of offense that simply doesn’t lead to wins. In fact, Calipari was so upset that he said he is thinking about going old school with the Razorbacks.
“How about, we might go back to how you guys grew up, if any of you ever played basketball. Where you had to pass it five times before you shoot it. Did you all do that? I think we’re gonna do that. Eighth grade s—. We’re gonna go eighth grade,” Calipari said in the postgame (h/t On3). “You’ve got to pass it five or six times.”
John Calipari threatens to go old school on Arkansas
Calipari didn’t like his team’s effort, but he also didn’t like the way they were playing on the offensive end, and especially in the halfcourt.
The Razorbacks didn’t move the ball well, which is why Calipari started going off on the old Bob Knight method of requiring a certain number of passes in the halfcourt before a player could take a shot.
“Coach Knight had a lot of fun doing that. That’s how they played. That ball’s moving and you’re screening, and until we get to this, you’re not shooting the ball,” Calipari explained.
Arkansas had only 13 assists compared to 18 by Winthrop.
Winthrop was also excellent from the three-point line, making 15-of-31 from behind the line, which was good for a blazing 48%. Meanwhile, Arkansas went 6-of-17 from deep (35%).
Ultimately, Arkansas escaped with a win and improved to 4-1 on the season, but efforts like this won’t lead to wins in the future, especially with No. 5 Duke and No. 6 Louisville coming up on the schedule in the next few weeks.
