Could Don Calipari and his young groomsmen be saving their vintage performance for March Madness?

Going back to antiquity, the Ides of March — being named after the red planet and god of war — were a time to renew old rivalries and collect old debts. 

Well Razorbackers, that time is upon us once again. 

John Calipari returns to the Big Dance in red

After all the scandalous calumny suffered, the relentless rumor mongering following a contentious divorce and lingering injuries, suffered in an unprecedented war of attrition, the rumors of John Calipari’s demise in his first sojourn at Arkansas appear rather exaggerated. 

That’s because on the most recent Selection Sunday in the year of our Lord 2025, the NCAA’s Selection Committee has deemed the Naismith Hall of Famer’s first campaign in red since his Minute Men days worthy of an invitation to their annual ball — colloquially referred to as “March Madness.”  Calipari’s Razorbacks were graciously granted the No. 10 seat in the Western Regionals of the NCAA’s Big Dance — as it’s also affectionately known to hoop lovers around the world. 

But whatever we call this annual war of the roses, make no mistake. No one in Razorback Nation should expect a warm reception from the blue-blooded snobs, assembled to greet them when Calipari shows up with his undermanned and beleaguered company of groomsmen, captained by seniors Jonas Aidoo, Johnell Davis, and Trevon Brazile — each of whom had to fight through injuries (and serious doubts of their own) to help secure the coveted tournament bid. 

Just one year ago in his final year leading the Kentucky Wildcats, Calipari’s first-round NCAA tournament ouster to an upstart Oakland team — his fifth such early exit since the NCAA cancelled the tournament during the COVID Pandemic in 2020 — made him persona non grata among Big Blue Nation. Never mind that Calipari had led the privileged program to nothing less than a Sweet 16 in nine of the previous 10 years (including three Elite Eights, four Final Fours, two title game appearances and a national championship in 2012).

Calipari didn’t have to search far (or wait long) to find a new home. That’s because of his prior relationship with Arkansas business tycoon John Tyson, who jumped at the opportunity to bring Calipari to the Natural State in hopes that he could return Arkansas to its hard-earned — and long lost — place atop the college basketball world. The first since the days of the cowboy boot-wearing legendary rebel floor general, Nolan Richardson. 

Facing the Blue Bloods

Richardson no doubt knows a thing or two about being unceremoniously dismissed from the place where he solidified his own Hall of Fame legacy. But if the Calipari sojourn at Arkansas is going to fulfill its promise of ending the 30-year exile of Razorback Nation from the pinnacle point of college basketball, that leg of the journey begins on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in Providence, Rhode Island. This time against another college basketball blue blood in the Kansas Jayhawks and their coach Bill Self. 

Self was in line  to replace Richardson at Arkansas in 2002, but the acrimonious red-blooded atmosphere at Arkansas at the time made opting for the blue skies of Kansas an easy decision. That decision has no doubt paid off handsomely for Self, who like Calipari had an early stint as an assistant at Kansas under Larry Brown. 

During his head coaching tenure at Kansas, Self has led the Jayhawks to a quartet of Final Fours and delivered two national championships to Phog Allen Fieldhouse — one of them at Calipari’s expense in 2008. Of course there is the inconvenient truth that recruiting violations forced Jayhawk Nation  (psst: and this goes for BBN as  well) to do something unheard of in Arkansas: vacate a Final Four in 2018 and multiple tournament wins.

Yet somehow, Self’s program hasn’t missed a beat — even after another rules violation in 2022, but I digress. 

The Jayhawks were projected as a favorite to compete for this year’s national championship as well and Kansas came into Thursday’s March Madness opening round marquee match up with a mere seventh seed after starting the preseason as No. 1 in the country. Self said on Sunday he’s never been seated so low in his twenty plus years at Lawrence. 

Seats at the head of the table are expectations among college blue bloods, but the last time Arkansas met one of Self’s top-seeded Kansas teams, Self was unavailable after suffering a heart attack during the 2023 Big 12 Conference Tournament. Arkansas — led by then-coach Eric Musselman — wrested a Sweet 16 appearance away from the highly-favored Jayhawks in Self’s absence. 

The Road to Redemption

Never mind Arkansas’ meaningless preseason exhibition win in October in Bud Walton Arena, but Self will no doubt be looking forward to officially facing his old friend Calipari for the first time in red and while both are closer to full strength. 

Calipari’s road to redemption hasn’t been all rosy either. The ungrateful narcissists of Big Blue Nation never miss an opportunity with the kind of character assassinations that would make a Brutus blush. BBN seems to think they are eternally entitled to top recruits over their red-blooded neighbors and the mere thought that Calipari’s faithfulness to his players would cause youngsters caught up in the divorce to follow him to Arkansas is an unforgivable offense in their minds. 

All season long it may have seemed to some Razorbackers that the John Calipari marriage to Arkansas has been a series of broken promises. After all, the preseason expectations of a deep NCAA tournament run came with a top-15 ranking and a top-ranked recruiting classes out of high school, featuring young guns like Boogie Fland, Karter Knox and Wild Billy Richmond III. They teamed with their three older sibling transfers from Kentucky in Adou Thiero, D.J. Wagner and Generation Z personified — Zvonimir “Big Z” Ivisic. 

With a hall of fame coach and the aforementioned seniors, it all somehow ended with a sub .500, ninth-place finish in the SEC, a precarious invitation to the big dance, and one head scratching loss after another. Some ill will appeared to follow Calipari to The Hill in Fayetteville and threatened to doom his inaugural campaign in red. 

Beginning in the preseason when Aidoo fractured his foot soon after committing to the Razorbacks, Arkansas has suffered a rash of injuries to a roster which was already limited to only nine viable options. 

The transfer portal’s top overall player and star of previous dance offs to a Final Four with Florida Atlantic, Davis fell off a cart and suffered a nagging wrist injury. Fland had his rising star to the NBA dimmed by wrist surgery in January, and just when Calipari’s Hogs had fought their way out of an 0-5 hole to start SEC play and get back in the running for that coveted invitation, leading scorer and rebounder, Thiero injures a knee and may miss out on the fun. 

By the time Calipari’s team reached SEC Tournament play, there was no rest for the weary. Calipari made the mistake of saying the quiet part out loud and sparked a chorus of boomer virtue signalling that Conference Tournament lives matter. 

It certainly did for Arkansas as teams which the Razorbacks managed to beat or outperform in the SEC regular season and matched in the SEC tournament like Georgia (9), Mississippi State (8) and Vanderbilt (10) got equal or higher bids coming into the Big Dance. If Calipari picks up where he left off at Kentucky with another early exit from the NCAA ball, Cinderfella is sure to be greeted by his ugly step brothers with the knives drawn. 

During Calipari’s first run through the SEC, those knives have been visible every step of the way — if you know where to look. In a year where the SEC basketball firepower has never been so unrelenting, let’s take a look at a few shots you may have missed along the way. 

After Arkansas lost at then No. 8 ranked Texas A&M, Aggie coach Buzz Williams said, “(Calipari) has been in the hall of fame almost as long as I've been a head coach, but I tend to agree that, no matter your talent level, if you all get together for the first time and pop firecrackers on July, you have not accumulated the reps of the group we have.”

After Arkansas let then-No. 1 ranked Auburn off the hook in Auburn, War Eagle’s coach Bruce Pearl said in all self-deprecating humility. “Well, he's the only one in the hall of fame. So I don't know if there's another hall of fame coach, but he's in the hall of fame. I'm on the wall of shame.”

And not to be outdone, Chris Beard, who led the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Trojans to the rarest of NCAA Tournament bids, jabbed Coach Call after eliminating Arkansas from the SEC Tournament. 

“We actually came here to win this tournament. I know a lot of people don't understand that. So we set this up. We always say the first game in any tournament is the most important. So it's a singular focus, laser focus. Only thing we talked about was our first game.”

Et tu Brute?

What if Don Calipari makes a run in the tournament?

Of course, his laser focus didn’t prevent Beard's Rebels from suffering the same fate as Calipari’s Razorbacks in the SEC tournament as they lost their second game, but I digress. 

Somehow, the Teflon Don’s  young, injury-plagued crew comes into The Big Dance playing their best basketball of the season and relatively healthy thanks to Fland’s recently announced return. Can it be that The Don of college basketball — like the Biblical bridegroom — was wise to save his best vintage for when the party matters most?

We shall see. But if Calipari’s Razorbacks can somehow pick up on the trend started Musselman and see Arkansas as one of the last SEC teams standing when all is said and done, all will be forgiven. The godfather will have written the perfect ending to his saga and Calipari’s big-blue detractors will have to kiss the don’s ring one more time. 

Those detractors would like nothing better than to see his first season at Arkansas end in another first-round exit from the Big Dance. It’s the only way to justify divorcing themselves from one of the most successful coaches in college basketball history. But if Calipari has a few cards left up his sleeves, now is as good a time as any to put them all on the table with not only Self, but Cal’s arch enemy and former Kentucky coach Rick Pitino — now leading a Red Storm of his own — also waiting in the wings. 

What better way to end all doubts, silence all of the critics and settle all scores than to begin the run by one upping Self and Pitino? There are sure to be other thirsty rivals on the road to fulfilling the promise to resurrect Arkansas’ proud basketball history and re-establish it among college basketball’s elite. 

Success in the NCAA Tournament always equates to better recruiting and more national prestige for any program. Calipari brought both of those things with him to Arkansas and if he can establish his winning credentials for March Madness at Arkansas, blue bloods will be boiling all over the country.

It may — or may not — happen this year, but make no mistake. That is his mission. His inheritance for being king of The Hill is to live up to the standards set by Eddie Sutton, Nolan Richardson — and yes even Eric Musselman. It’s a Herculean task but that’s why he makes the big bucks.

After all, Cal said on Selection Sunday he hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be an underdog. As Arkansans like to say, “Welp Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." Welcome to the Natural State. There’s no better place for breeding underdogs. So it looks like Coach Cal has landed in the right place at just the right time.