New Arkansas head coach John Calipari is known as one of the greatest recruiters in the sport's history, as he constantly produces NBA talent.
In 14 seasons at Kentucky, Calipari had 47 players selected in the NBA Draft, 35 of which were first round picks. Each of those numbers are set to increase in the upcoming NBA Draft, as well.
Many of those draft picks were one-and-done freshmen, the Calipari formula to success for much of his time in Lexington and even Memphis (2000-2009) prior to his time with the Wildcats.
With rule changes and exceptions allowing players to stay in school longer, the sport has gotten much older. The stark change has affected the entire landscape of college basketball, most notably forcing one of the best recruiters the sport has ever seen to adjust his strategy.
"I’ve always said, ‘What’s next and how can we be first?’" Calipari said to reporters at the SEC Spring Meetings on Wednesday. "So, you kind of read the tea leaves and how they’re going to do things. How are they going to do things where it works for everybody. I’ve always been about players and so I want them to do well but I also want to make sure I’m doing right by them in how you’re dealing with this."
Part of that adaptation has led Calipari not to recruit so many freshmen, but still making a national recruiting impact through any means necessary, such as potentially scheduling games at Madison Square Garden.
"(We) want to have the type of games, national games — you need to play in Madison Square Garden," Calipari said. "Look, we want to recruit Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Saint Louis, we do. We know we’re going to recruit nationally. The only thing is, we’re not going to take six or seven freshmen, now it’ll be three or four. Hopefully we retain a few, get a couple transfers and that is the formula."
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Talks of Calipari cutting down on the number of freshmen, adding transfers, and retaining players is a concept that seems so foreign, especially considering the fact that he signed seven true freshmen in the 2023 class at Kentucky. At Arkansas, though, he's added just three incoming freshmen — Boogie Fland, Karter Knox, and Billy Richmond — along with five incoming transfers so far.
"I think of last year’s team and what we were able to do with so many young guys," Calipari said. "The lesson was, you can’t do this now with seven freshmen, you just can’t. You’re going to hit a team that’s 25 years old on average, one was 26 and that team is physically going to get you. Now we have a couple transfers that are older, some kids that transferred from Kentucky that went through it that are a year older and some freshmen."
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There are still five scholarship spots to fill, although the head coach seems to only want to fill one more spot. That concept, on the other hand, is not as foreign. He made the comment that at UMass (1988-96), he only played six players.
While the process is a little bit different, the Head Hog still shows some moxy when it comes to his ability to produce results on the court.
"If you watch my history, hopefully you would feel that we’ll be fine," Calipari said.
Arkansas currently has eight scholarship players for the 2024-25 roster with the recent addition of Kentucky transfer DJ Wagner. Click here for HawgBeat's Arkansas basketball roster tracker.
