FAYETTEVILLE — The John Calipari era at Arkansas is less than 48 hours away from beginning when the No. 16 Razorbacks tip off against the Lipscomb Bisons on Wednesday night at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville.

While the Hogs used preseason charity exhibition games against No. 1 Kansas (85-69 win) and TCU (66-65 loss) to get tuned up, the Bisons already started their regular season Monday night with a 77-72 road win at Duquesne.

Head coach Lennie Acuff is in his sixth season with Lipscomb and he's been coaching college basketball for more than 30 years at this point. His team has posted back-to-back 20-win seasons, including a 20-12 mark with a quarterfinal berth in the ASUN conference tournament.

"Coach Acuff has done an unbelievable job at Lipscomb," Arkansas assistant coach Chuck Martin said Wednesday. "We have a tremendous amount of respect for him and his program, and I think that’s the consensus around the country. When you play Lipscomb, you know you’re going to play an efficient team, a team that’s not going to beat itself.

"Unbelievable on offense. Their ball movement, their player movement, their execution, their counters. They do an unbelievable job of reading the defense and then countering it. And Coach (Calipari) is correct, a lot like the old Princeton offense. They’re as good as anybody in the country in terms of running their offense."

Acuff's Bisons were picked preseason to finish first in the Atlantic Sun Conference by the league's 12 head coaches. His team ranks 18th nationally in Division I experience (2.79 years per player), according to KenPom.

"Lennie Acuff is one of the best coaches in the country," Calipari said Oct. 1. "Lipscomb’s going to come in here and be a hard game."