HawgBeat - Calipari on scheduling: 'We've been called by CBS, ESPN'
Arkansas head coach John Calipari talks scheduling, including Memphis and being wanted by national broadcasts.
arkansas.rivals.com
Arkansas head coach John Calipari took the stage as part of the Razorback Road Show Tuesday night at The Hall in Little Rock. The new Head Hog fielded questions on a variety of topics, including roster construction, recruiting and scheduling.
Similar to the Arkansas roster when he took the head job, the schedule was bare for the upcoming season, which gave reporters room to pose a potential matchup with a former rival — the Memphis Tigers.
"First of all, you know when I asked to see my team before I did the press conference, there was no team," Calipari said. "So after I got five guys so I felt comfortable that I could start doing other things, I said let me see the schedule. There was no schedule. So now, I’m starting from scratch.
"Got to get the national stuff done first. We’ve been called by CBS, ESPN, different events. They want us in. I’ve got to get through that. As we get through that, then you’ll want to look and see if we want to do any home-and-homes. But we’ll see. I have fond memories of Memphis and my time there, so we’ll see how it all plays out."
While the non-conference schedule is unknown, the SEC released the home and away league matchups for the upcoming season Monday. Calipari suggested that the conference itself is good, and discussed returning to Rupp Arena to face the his former team — the Kentucky Wildcats — next season.
"Was there any doubt that we were going to go to Rupp Arena?" Calipari asked. "Which you know, in one way I’ll look forward to it. In another way, I’m not going to look forward to it. The league is top to bottom as good as it gets. It was that way last year. There are no easy games and you just added Oklahoma and Texas.
"We’ve got Texas twice and Missouri twice and LSU twice. It’s top to bottom. That’s why I’ve got to go through this schedule. You can’t be too top-heavy, but you do want to have a schedule that challenges you and also gets you on national television and puts you out there where people want to see it."
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Arkansas' schedule should have plenty of marquee matchups, particularly on the road, as it is set to face four of the SEC'S top teams from last year away from Bud Walton Arena. The Razorbacks are also set to host Alabama and Florida, among others, at home
Calipari was notorious at Kentucky for scheduling difficult non-conference schedules. The Wildcats played 14 ranked non-conference games over the past five seasons under Calipari.
For reference, Arkansas played just six, all coming in the past two years, and half of which came from preseason tournaments like the Maui Invitational and the Battle 4 Atlantis.
