Calipari Opting Out of Wearing Red Blazer, Hog Calls Coming at the Wrong Time

John Calipari, Arkansas basketball
photo credit: SEC Network

During what proved to be an 18-point butt whooping at Missouri on Saturday, Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari – to the shock of many – wore a blue blazer.

With the Razorbacks off to their first ever 0-5 start to SEC play, there was already enough for fans to complain about, from the lack of scoring (they’ve broken 70 once in league competition) to Nelly Davis’ inability to get going despite his alleged million dollar NIL to getting killed on the glass, and now they’ve got wardrobe faux pas to deal with as well.

Calipari was the coach at Kentucky for 15 seasons, and before that was at Memphis for nine years, so he’s spent nearly a quarter century accumulating blue blazers to wear for those teams. That’s not surprising, but you’d think he could’ve used some of his gigantic salary to purchase four or five red sport coats or blazers, especially since his go-to blazer so fan has looked more pink than cardinal red. 

Heck, maybe he still has some from his UMass days that he could’ve dug out.

I mean, the Arkansas basketball team still has an edited photo of him in a red blazer as its header picture on Facebook, a remnant of the graphics it posted when he was hired.

Or he could’ve asked Mike Anderson if he didn’t mind him borrowing this every now and then.

Arkansas, Kentucky Fans Unite

Once a team has shown they’re not very good, there’s a tendency for fans to have a hard time talking about things on the field (or court, in this case) that could influence the team to improve.

Therefore, now John Calipari’s blazer is something to focus on. 

On Monday during the ‘Chuck and Bo Show’ on ESPN Arkansas, a caller named Paul expounded on his thoughts about Calipari’s attire.

“I turned the TV on last night to watch that ballgame and I seen ‘ol Cal having that blue jacket on,” Paul said. “I turned it off. He hasn’t embraced the red since they introduced him to the state and if he’s going to wear blue on the side of that court, I don’t care if they win another game.”

Harsh, but he’s not alone – except it’s his previous stop’s fans that are dumbfounded by the fashion choice that their ex-coach is deploying.

Here is a rundown of some comments from Cats Illustrated’s ‘Rupp Rafters,’ which had a thread that ran four pages and included hundreds of replies.

Arky fans are going to lose their mind over this . Is Cal that tone deaf or is he doing it to gig their basketball bennies? Lol”

“I was just gonna say OMG what is he doing? Hogs are already pissed that he wears pink instead of RED. Now he’s gonna wear BLUE? 😂 His ego is trying to throw it back at them I’m sure.”

“Wonder if he wears blue to Rupp, so he can blend (in). He will want to hide.”

“Cal is superstitious… thought wearing the lucky blue jacket might bring him a change in luck.”

With regards to that last one, maybe Calipari thought that his presence in Mizzou Arena in blue might evoke memories of his time at UK, where he went 11-3 against the Tigers as the Wildcats’ coach.

However, all three of those losses occurred in Columbia since 2018, and Kentucky was ranked for two of the matchups.

Does John Calipari’s Attire Really Matter?

In the grand scheme of things, what John Calipari wears to the game matters very little, especially with regard to the outcome and how his players perform.

It’s just a bad look for a guy who could really use some positive public relations at this point, with the national basketball media hammering him at every possible opportunity as the losing continues.

Chuck Barrett definitely doesn’t see why it’s worth harping on, but understands the sentiment.

“Guys, I got news for you,” Barrett said on his show. “Look at some of the suits that Coach Richardson wore, Coach Anderson wore, Coach Pelphrey wore, Stan Heath, any of them – Muss didn’t wear a suit – but go back and look at the colors of the suits that they wore and how many times were they red? Very, very seldom. I mean, Nolan wore turquoise. I’ve seen Mike wear everything under the sun and Heath was the same way.”

“But I think that this is much ado about nothing, but I know for a lot of people it’s a really big deal,” Barrett continued.

Even Curtis Wilkerson and Andrew Ellis of Inside Arkansas chimed in about it in their ‘Pod at the Palace,’ adding that half of Calipari’s assistant coaches still have blue-rimmed glasses.

“It’s probably a prescription thing, but you’re probably making enough money where you get those switched over to something normal or red,” Wilkerson said.

Ellis spoke to how it doesn’t seem like he’s developed a true allegiance to being a part of the Razorback community, despite the trips to Hot Springs and Pine Bluff and helping with the tornado relief in Rogers. It created a bit of stir when he didn’t do a Hog Call at his introductory press conference, but that was also forgivable since he was so new to the job at the time. No time to practice and all that. But by the time I saw Calipari at his weekly coach’s show at Sassy’s on December 16, he’d been on the job for the better part of the year. Yet he sat there, unperturbed, as others did the Hog call at one part.

(In his defense, Calipari did participate in the Hog call during his appearance at Sassy’s on Monday night.)

Eric Musselman left zero doubt about his enthusiasm and loyalty, Ellis added. Indeed, sometimes it seemed like Calipari’s predecessor was overcompensating. “He was showing up for baseball games in full uniform where he was like ‘Oh yeah, I’m embracing the Hog.’ To the point where we were like, all right, let’s relax a little bit. Cal is the exact opposite side of the spectrum.”

Whatever the case, if Calipari’s team doesn’t start winning games, every little thing he does is going to come under a microscope, whether he and his staff likes it or not.

Because in the SEC, it just means more.

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Check out our in-depth preview of Arkansas vs Georgia, including who stands to gain the most in Boogie Fland’s potential absence:

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More coverage of Arkansas basketball and John Calipari from BoAS…

https://www.bestofarkansassports.com/arkansas-basketball-cooper-flagg-cruix-of-john-calipari-struggles
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