Arkansas basketball debuted at No. 16 in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25 poll released on Monday. With the Razorbacks being ranked, they’re now the fourth different program head coach John Calipari has led to a preseason Top 25 ranking (UMass, Memphis, Kentucky and Arkansas), which is the most of any coach. For Calipari, though, he isn’t fazed by any of those preseason accolades.
The 2024-25 Arkansas basketball team spent the weekend in Hot Springs and Pine Bluff for the first annual Tip-Off Tour exhibition event. Speaking to the media following Sunday night’s event in Pine Bluff, Calipari revealed he doesn’t care what is said about his team in the preseason.
“I’ve done this so long, I’ve had teams overrated. I’ve had them underrated,” Calipari said. “You can hype all you want. Eventually you got to play the games. So whatever you think we are. I agree. You think we’re awful? I agree. You think we’re really good? I agree. Doesn’t matter.”
Last year’s Arkansas basketball team landed at No. 14 on the preseason AP Top 25 poll only to flounder for the majority of the season. The Hogs eventually finished the year 16-17 (6-12 SEC) and missed out on any postseason play. Later that offseason, head coach Eric Musselman took the USC job, which opened the door for Calipari to take over at Arkansas.
In the six months since Calipari’s hiring, he’s had to assemble a roster from scratch and try to put together a competitive schedule with very limited time to do so. His goal with this first schedule as Arkansas head coach was to test the Razorbacks early and often. The hope is that his team can take some lumps early on and use those setbacks to reach their full potential later in the year.
A good indication of how tough the Razorbacks schedule is, 15 future opponents were either inside the Top 25 or received votes. Among the teams on the Razorback schedule in the AP poll are No. 1 Kansas (charity exhibition), No. 2 Alabama, No. 8 Baylor, No. 11 Auburn, No. 2 Tennessee, No. 13 Texas A&M. No. 19 Texas, No. 21 Florida, No. 23 Kentucky and No. 24 Ole Miss with the following receiving votes Illinois (No. 26), Michigan (No. 34), Miami (No. 38), Mississippi State (No. 43) and Little Rock (No. 49).
“What I will tell you is this team has only been together five months,” Calipari said “Why do you think I put together a schedule of Kansas and TCU, a hard Lipscomb game, Baylor in Dallas. Why do you think I did that?… So, if we get dinged early and we’re not ready, ‘OK, then I got work to do.’ If we hold our own, we know ‘OK, now let’s tighten this up and let’s see the areas we got to get better at.’
“You go on and you’re playing Illinois, Michigan, Miami. I mean, that’s all before, like December 10. Why would you do that? Because we need to see where we are. his is about March. How do we get prepared to play then? Our league is really hard. The only way you know if you’re ready for the league is play non conference where you’re getting stuffed a little bit.”
Despite Calipari not buying any of the preseason hype for his team, the accolades continued to roll in on Monday afternoon as senior guard Johnell Davis and senior forward Jonas Aidoo earned second team All-SEC honors. As a whole, the Razorbacks were selected to finish fourth in the SEC, behind Alabama (No. 1), Auburn, (No. 2) and Tennessee (No. 3).
Prior to the start of the season on Nov. 6, Arkansas is set to play two high-profile charity exhibition games. On Oct. 25, the Razorbacks host Kansas in Fayetteville and on Nov. 1 they’ll travel to Fort Worth, Texas to face TCU in Dickies Arena. Tip-off for the exhibition with Kansas is set for 8:00 p.m. (CDT), and the game will be televised on SEC Network.
