NEW YORK — Bill Self tried to warn John Calipari that he may regret the way he constructed his first Arkansas basketball roster.
Now 10 games into the season, the legendary coach is coming to realize his friend and fellow Hall of Famer was right. With only nine main rotational players, the injury bug has wrecked havoc on the Razorbacks since the summer.
Even though every player dressed out and was technically available in Arkansas’ 89-87 win over No. 14 Michigan at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, it was far from full strength.
Adou Thiero and Billy Richmond III were battling the flu, while Zvonimir Ivisic was still clearly hampered by a lingering sprained ankle that kept him sidelined the previous game.
“Z was hurt, and he said, ‘I can do it,’ but you saw it there,” Calipari said. “He couldn’t move, but he made a 3, helped us win the game.”
In addition to that 3-pointer, which came on three attempts, Ivisic had a couple of assists and a rebound in 9 minutes of action. However, the 7-foot-2 big man also turned it over twice and committed a couple of fouls while appearing a step slow trying to defend Michigan’s pair of 7-footers.
The result: a minus-10 game grade. The only other Arkansas player with a negative plus-minute was Richmond, who didn’t record any official statistics, but still managed to be minus-8 in just 61 seconds of playing time.
As for Thiero, he was so sick that he hardly participated in the Razorbacks’ gameday shoot around. Calipari asked him for at least 10 minutes and ended up playing him for nearly 22. Flashes of his athleticism came through on some tough finishes around the basket and one rebound where he leapt into the sky to grab the ball before crashing to the floor. It was part of a ho-hum 13-point, 4-rebound, 1-steal performance in which he shot 6 of 9 from the floor.
One of the trickle-down effects of the limited rotation was Boogie Fland playing 37 minutes — his most since getting 38 against Little Rock on Nov. 22. In the four games since then, the freshman had averaged only 28.8 minutes.
Playing in front of more than 100 family and friends, the Bronx native was phenomenal with 20 points and 7 assists, but he was gassed down the stretch as the Wolverines made their run.
“It’s not fair to him,” Calipari said. “He died at the end of the game and, again, I left him in too much.”
Not the First Time for Arkansas Basketball
This wasn’t the first time John Calipari had to deal with a short bench this season. Tuesday marked just the sixth time in 10 games that all nine main Razorbacks saw the floor — but they’ve yet to play a game in which everyone was at full strength.
After missing both exhibitions, Jonas Aidoo received limited minutes in the first two games against Lipscomb and Baylor. Calipari said he was only 70-75% healthy and even expressed regret for putting him on the floor.
He was also limited to just 4 minutes against Troy, which was the same game in which Trevon Brazile went down with an ankle injury. Neither got in after halftime and both missed the Pacific and Little Rock games.
Brazile returned in a limited role against Maryland-Eastern Shore while Aidoo was still sidelined. They both played against Illinois, but for only 6 and 11 minutes, respectively.
It was after that game that Calipari finally had a complete enough team to scrimmage. They did so on the Saturday and Sunday leading up to the Miami (Fla.) game, only for Zvonimir Ivisic to roll his ankle.
So against the Hurricanes, Ivisic was on a minutes restriction while Aidoo was also still gradually working his way back.
Aidoo finally seemed fully healthy for the first time against UTSA — but Ivisic was held out because of the aforementioned ankle injury.
That takes us all the way to Game 10, when the Croatian was limited and the duo of Adou Thiero and Billy Richmond III played through the flu.
Only six of the Razorbacks’ nine main rotation players have appeared in every game.
The Hidden Problem with Calipari’s Plan
John Calipari has been around long enough to know injuries are always a possibility — if not an inevitability — so he was prepared to go through some games with only six or seven players. He even harkened back to his time at UMass, when that was his typical rotation.
What he underestimated was the potential impact of such a small roster on his practices.
As the legendary coach has mentioned nearly every time he’s met with the media, the Razorbacks have been unable to scrimmage outside of the two days leading up to the Miami game.
That includes the preseason, which is important for all teams to build chemistry, but especially so for those like Arkansas that were built from scratch a couple months earlier.
Even during the Tip-Off Tour events in Hot Springs and Pine Bluff, the Razorbacks’ list of inactives was nearly as long as that of their list of active players. Adou Thiero, Johnell Davis and Jonas Aidoo were either held out entirely or limited to non-contact drills — as were reserves Melo Sanchez and Casmir Chavis.
There were so few players available that what was originally planned to serve as Arkansas’ annual Red-White game essentially turned into a couple of open practices. Since then, fellow reserve Jaden Karuletwa has also been banged up.
While Calipari talked about bringing in skilled graduate assistants who could provide extra bodies in practice, those coaches can’t replace the reserves he signed to fill out his roster because NCAA rules prohibit the GAs from actually scrimmaging with the team. They can only go through drills.
Time for Calipari to Rethink Strategy?
Since the moment he revealed his new philosophy of bringing in only 8-9 key rotation players and filling out the rest of the roster with “walk-on” types who don’t receive the same level of NIL, John Calipari has been second-guessed by fans and media alike.
When details of the historic NCAA v. House settlement were revealed, a reporter asked if the increase in men’s basketball scholarships from 13 to 15 might influence that plan moving forward.
Calipari said it didn’t change anything, but did leave the door open to adjusting his views as the season progressed.
Just 10 games into his first season with the Razorbacks, it seems as though those thoughts are already starting to creep into his mind. He admitted as much Tuesday night, even in the afterglow of the dramatic win over Michigan.
“We might have to,” Calipari said when asked if he’d reconsider his roster-building strategy. “It may not work the way I planned. (With) eight or nine guys, everybody would be happy. You don’t have transfer problems, NIL issues.
“A couple coaches said, ‘What if you have injuries?’ I’ll have happy players. I’ll have six guys and seven playing. I didn’t plan on that all of preseason. I thought you get in the season, someone get hurt, you have seven, but you’re prepared.”
There were signs of Calipari coming to that realization as early as last month. Not only did he secure signatures from a pair of top-10 recruits during the early signing period, but he also landed in-state standout Isaiah Sealy.
While the Springdale product is certainly capable of playing in the SEC, he is not quite on the same level as Darius Acuff and Meleek Thomas or the main trio of recruits he signed in 2024.
The Razorbacks are still pursuing other top-30 prospects to join the 2025 class, but Sealy is more in the top-75 range and hints at Calipari’s willingness to bring in more than just the potential one-and-done kind of freshmen, significantly improving the end of the bench.
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Matt Norlander Not Yet Putting Hogs Into Best-of-SEC Territory
CBS’ Matt Norlander, like pretty much every other basketball analyst with a working brain, sees the SEC as the nation’s top conference. “It is a lock that this conference is sending 10 teams to the tournament mathematically; I don’t see how it won’t barring a true apocalypse here – it’s by far the best league in the country,” he said on a recent episode of “Eye on College Basketball.”
“I would take the SEC over the entire field because of the quality of teams there.. between Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Auburn, those four specifically, they are the ones looking like the four national title contender.”
He and Gary Parrish also went into depth about Arkansas here:
Arkansas vs UCA
On Saturday afternoon, Arkansas faces UCA. The Bears are led by true freshman Layne Taylor became a local legend at Farmington High over the previous few seasons, scoring 61 points in a game as a sophomore and helping the program win more than 90% of its games including a trip to the state championship game last year.
Now, he’s one of the top-scoring freshmen in Division I basketball. The 5-foot-11 guard currently sits at 17.0 points to go along with 4.8 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. His matchup with Fland will be one of the top matchups to watch when the two squads square off in North Little Rock.
More here:
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