SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAYS

October 14, 2026

John Calipari

Arkansas Razorbacks

Men's Media Day Press Conference

JOHN CALIPARI: So I like my team. This is a hard league to do it with young guys, which is what we're going to do. The average age is around 19, just turned 19.

Billy Goat coming back was huge for us. Jeremiah and Coop, the old guys, both 20. You have Jordan, J.J., Abdou, Miikka, Davion, Caleb. You have Ilia and Maper from overseas.

Now I mentioned every player. They can't say, Why didn't you mention me? I mentioned them all.

But we're really young but competitive. Got a good group that way. Now we just got a lot of things to figure out.

Yesterday I changed half the stuff we'd worked on all summer in the first 13 days because I wasn't comfortable with it with this team. So I changed, which I told them, Get used to it, that's what I do.

They want to be coached. They want to compete. They want to scrimmage. They don't like drills. Stop the drills. Throw the ball up, let's go.

I've had to break up a couple - what's a basketball fight? They go like this, they're both moving back (smiling). But we had to break up a few of those. That hadn't happened in a while.

I'm loving what I'm seeing. But for anybody to predict this team, you're crazy. I don't have an idea. Will we be good? Will we be real good? Will we be bad? I don't know yet. When you're talking 17, 18, some 19-year-olds, how are they going to react when they get punched in the mouth? Don't know yet. How do they react if they're not playing the minutes they want to play? I don't know yet.

I had Shai. Wasn't starting Shai. I called him in my office and said, You should be starting, but I kind of like this rotation.

He said, Coach, I trust you.

He walked out of my office. Two games I started him, the rest is history. That's the kind of kids that make it. The ego stuff doesn't play a part of it. This team is coming together pretty good.

Questions.

Q. A lot has been made about the athleticism that you have on this roster. Now that you've had a few months to see it in some exhibitions, what excites you the most about the athleticism?

JOHN CALIPARI: First of all, we have three seven-footers and three 6'11" players. We have size and length. But you also have a Billy, a J.J. Jeremiah is a terrific athlete, by the way. He's been really good.

If I'll be trying to play nine or 10 guys, I'm looking around this room, most of you probably don't really know basketball, what would you think I should do if I'm trying to play nine or 10? Probably press, would you say, then play really fast so they can only play three or four minutes at a time.

That means you still have to be disciplined. If we block shots, we are really fast. Last year we were really fast. I hate to tell you, this team may be faster.

But the other team is going to say, If you let them get out and run, you're going to score at will. We're going to have to figure out, get this, how to play in the halfcourt. That's what I changed up yesterday. I wasn't comfortable with what we were trying to do. It didn't fit the players, that stuff.

Yes, we're athletic, which means we should defend, we should be able to guard. But the best part of it is they'll compete.

Q. A couple weeks back you publicly supported Hunter Yurachek, amid the recent frustrations surrounding Arkansas football, the criticism of his leadership. What do you think that fans should understand about him and the direction of Arkansas athletics just based off your experiences with him?

JOHN CALIPARI: What I've said, here is the best thing for this program. We're not in debt. There are not many programs around the country that can say they're not in debt. We're not in debt.

He's been great for me. Part of the reason I took the job is I sat down with him and I was comfortable. Everything he said he would do he did.

I'm looking around the room saying, what are we losing our minds here? He has kept us to where we can now figure out how we're going to go forward.

But I understand, you got ADs being fired around the country. You know why? 'Cause their programs are in debt 200 million, 150 million. So they're firing ADs now.

But he's going to do fine. I wish we would have won that football game, for our football players, our coach and Hunter. But you don't know what's in the cards.

I just know he's a good man.

Q. Since Abdou got on campus, how much have you seen him grow?

JOHN CALIPARI: Who are we talking about?

Q. Abdou.

JOHN CALIPARI: Abdou Toure is one of the great kids, and he's funny, okay? I told Billy and I told Jordan, your job is to get him to fight like you two fight, because if he does, every scout that walks in our gym -- we did pro day. He was the one they were talking about. They all said and we know you're trying to get him to play harder, be more alert, do all that. The things he does, normal people can't do.

I told Billy and Jordan, Your job is to get him to play like you. You can do it in a nice way or mean way, I don't care. But I don't want that responsibility. I want you to have that responsibility.

I'm going to say this. Great family and the greatest kid. He calls me last night, we had one of our player's grandmother died. He wanted me to know in case I didn't know. I said I talked to the kid yesterday.

I'm excited for him because I'm telling you, I saw him get 50 over in Istanbul, 50. I'm like, Holy geez, who is this kid? They said, He's a kid from Connecticut. What?

But he's a good one.

Q. You mentioned Jeremiah a couple times. What stood out about his game when you were considering him? How has he fit in with the team?

JOHN CALIPARI: His ability to score, his athleticism. I really liked. What I didn't know about him is he can defend. First of all, he can pick up and bother the ball. But playing against Jordan, Jordan is like a middle linebacker, literally like a middle linebacker. He was going one on one and going right at Jeremiah. Jeremiah chested him and held. It was like two guys...

If he scored, Jeremiah was mad. If he blocked it and someone called a foul, he would go nuts. "I blocked that, I didn't foul." I did not know that. You don't know about a player's competitive spirit and all the things he can do until you start coaching him.

Now, less is more. I don't need you to overdribble. Less is more. Score the ball. If he doesn't shoot, I stop practice. Why didn't you shoot that? How about you drive in there. He likes to throw bounce passes. We don't throw bounce passes. I just told you we have three seven-footers, three 6'11". Billy's head is on the rim. Abdou is too. Why would you throw a bounce pass? "Because that's what I do." Now I got him throwing lobs. He knows it. I tell him, you can do this. The greatest kid.

But I'm his third coach. So I think he's been doing great.

Q. A year ago in this room you said when your interactions start to feel transactional, you're done coaching. How did your interactions go this last cycle?

JOHN CALIPARI: We have eight freshmen on this team. I go in every day loving it. They want to be coached. "Tell us what I have to do." It's not what you want to show, it's what they want to see. We got scouts in every day we're practicing. There's two or three scouts in there.

It's not what you want to show, it's what they want to see. As long as I can impact young people that way, I'm good. I'm good. If it is a 28-year-old, man, stop. I mean, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Do I want to win? C'mon, you guys know me well enough. I'd like to win a championship.

We have a group that thinks they can, but they have no idea what that would take. That's part of what my job is, teaching them how to win, how to play in tough games.

Our schedule's ridiculous. Why I opened the season with Virginia, I must have been on crack. Then you go Michigan State. What? Then you go we're going to go play in Phoenix, play Arizona. Indiana, way better than I thought. We're playing them in New York. Then we play an easy one, North Carolina in the Dean Dome. What?

I must have lost my mind when I did all that with this group being so young. That and the fact, what league are we in? This league. What's that mean? Last year we played I think eight of the Elite Eight teams we played last year. So this year, when you start talking all those teams, talking 12, 14 NCAA tournament teams that you're going to end up playing in this league. Some of 'em twice.

I don't know what you asked me, but that's my answer (smiling).

Q. Talking about one of your veterans, Cooper Bowser, first one you nabbed out of the portal, how has he come along from a physicality standpoint and things he needs to improve on?

JOHN CALIPARI: You know what, he's been out I think three weeks, maybe four, with a hand. He's been doing no contact with us. He'll start Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday we'll practice with him.

I need him to have an impact. He was Defensive Player of the Year because he blocked shots, went after balls, rebounded in traffic. You know you can throw lobs to him. Like, he'll go get the ball.

Want him to be better in short rolls, making those kind of decisions. I like to play through him some as a five man.

Caleb is a reclass, 6'11", 250, but he's not ready yet. Now, if he's ready to play 20 minutes by January, we'll probably be really good because you got 6'11", 250. Just going by him, he hurts you. Like, Dude, you hit me in the face?

What are you talking about? He doesn't even know.

I told him, I want you to be the best screener so these guys are begging. We have guys hitting the floor right now. Caleb is knocking them down. He's not ready like Cooper Bowser. He's going to be important to this team.

Q. You've coached more elite freshmen than anybody. Where on the scale of competitiveness and guys who have won everything there is to win when they arrive is Jordan at? We had a guy like that last year, Cam Boozer, who was the same. Everybody criticized what he couldn't do.

JOHN CALIPARI: Similar. Very similar. He stuffs the stat sheet. He's been in the gym, he's taken 3,000 shots a day, maybe more, for his arc. He shot it a little flat. Now you're watching him, and all the scouts came in and said, We see the improvement, we see what he did. They've been watching. He's that good. For a long time. He's been good.

I'm also happy when they come in and they see Miikka and they watch him. They watch him be coached. They watch him interact with his teammates. They see his attitude.

They say, why is everybody saying X, Y, Z when I just watched. They did the same thing to Darius Acuff. They did exactly the same thing. "No one wants to play with him. He's the worst human being."

What, are you crazy? He was fun to coach. Miikka has been fun to coach. What Jordan is doing, these others, that's what makes me go. To say, look, together we got to prove these people wrong. You got things you got to do. They don't think you can do X, Y, Z. Jordan I'm playing at point guard. They say, What? Because I can. Like, I'm the coach. I can do whatever I want to do.

I'm playing him at point guard because, for him and us, I want the players on my team to see him, whether it be on offense or defense, see him, then he drives the rest of this.

I also need him up the court because if he is ahead of the pack, it's a two-on-two or one-on-one, he's scoring. He reminds a little bit of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, even though Michael was a little bigger. If he was ahead, Michael was, you didn't throw to him, I subbed you, immediately come out. You just gave up two points, because he was going to score. It'll be the same with Jordan. If he's ahead, you throw it to him.

Like J.J., he's gotten so much better in what he's been able to do. He gives us one more of a Jordan, a Billy. Now you got two or three. You don't just have one or two. You got a couple guys.

But this league, let me just say this, the coaches in this league, everybody coaches, everybody picks their team up. How about there's a team in the bottom five that's projected in the bottom five that may have the best guard in our league, the one that's hardest to guard. Who am I talking about? How do you pick them? What? You go coach against them then.

I don't even know, they should do it in groups. Here are the top five, here are the middle five, here are the bottom five, but maybe here's the second 10, here is the top six.

I can just tell you there won't be a bad game. You go on the road, it's going to be hard. You're playing at home, it's going to be hard.

Bunch of good guys coach in this league and get it done. I'm looking forward to walking this group through this kind of grueling schedule. But we'll have fun.

Thanks.