On April 3, Beijing time, John Calipari (John Calipari) is finalizing a five-year contract with the University of Arkansas to become the next head coach of the University of Arkansas men's basketball team, a blockbuster move that will shake the SEC league and the college basketball world.
John Calipari
Calypari's new contract is expected to have a total base salary of just over his $8.5 million at the University of Kentucky, however the deal is expected to be full of incentives and will have the ability to exceed that number by then. He is good friends with John Tyson, the largest donor to the University of Arkansas NIL and a member of the family of Tyson Foods, the largest producer and supplier of meat products in the United States, and he will also receive an annual NIL grant of $5 million.
Calipari will succeed Eric Musselman, who traveled to USC last week. After his departure, the University of Arkansas had passionately courted Chris Beard of the University of Mississippi and Jerome Tang of Kansas, but both coaches turned down offers from Arkansas.
John Calipari
Since joining the University of Kentucky in 2009, Calipari has a 410-123 record in 15 seasons, won the national championship in 2012, advanced to the Final Four four times, and built the Wildcats into a national recruiting powerhouse, often receiving top recruits, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.
But Calipari has been under more pressure at the University of Kentucky recently than at any other time in his tenure, as the Wildcats have not broken the first weekend of the NCAA Championship since 2019, losing back-to-back first-round losses to No. 15 seed St. Peter's University and No. 14 seed University of Oakland in recent years.
John Calipari
Friends close to Calipari revealed that he had a miserable time at the University of Kentucky, many fans were against him and wanted him to leave the Wildcats, and his joy in coaching in Kentucky was to gain admiration, popularity and influence from fans and basketball brands, but Calipari has lost that support in recent years, and once the coach needs the athletic director to issue a statement confirming that he is staying, it will be difficult to regain the trust of the fans, and Calipari is also aware of this, and the best option is to break up peacefully.
Caliparry's Class of 2024 recruited in Kentucky includes McDonald's All-Star point guard Johnuel "Boogie" Fland, small forward Kevin Knox and interior Jayden Quaintance, as well as four-star wing Billy Richmond and center Somto Cyril) and guard Travis Perry, the only one who is expected to stay is a Kentucky native, and the rest of the players are expected to move to the University of Arkansas in the NCAA.