Photo Credit: Craven Whitlow / Kentucky Athletics
When you’ve coached as long and with as much success as John Calipari, haters come with the territory. They’ve followed him from UMass all the way to Kentucky, and now to Arkansas.
Perhaps his most famous critic is Jeff Goodman, whose feud with Calipari dates back more than a decade to Cal’s days at Memphis, when Goodman claimed the coach tried to have him fired. Lately, Goodman infamously declared that “the game has passed John Calipari by” during an episode of the Field of 68 podcast in January after Arkansas basketball started 0-5 in SEC play. Following Goodman’s shot at Cal, the Hardwood Hogs won 11 of their next 16 games on their way to the program’s fourth Sweet Sixteen in five years.
Recent months have seen On3 recruiting analyst Jamie Shaw seemingly join in on the Calipari pseudo-hate train.
Arkansas’ sole basketball commit at the moment is JJ Andrews. After calling the Hogs in May, the Little Rock Christian product has shot up the recruiting boards with a dominant summer on the Nike EYBL circuit, culminating in Peach Jam MVP honors. But for some reason, On3/Rivals still ranks Andrews as the No. 24 prospect in the class, while 247Sports ranks him No. 13 and ESPN rates him as a 5-star.
Alone, that’s not enough to suggest any bias. After all, recruiting rankings often differ between outlets. However, this isn’t the first time On3 has downplayed an Arkansas recruit under Calipari while every other major service ranked them higher.
Former consensus 2025 5-star prospects Darius Acuff and Meleek Thomas were both top-15 ranked players by every outlet, even Rivals, which On3 recently acquired. But On3 gave them a 4-star rating, ranking Thomas No. 23 and Acuff No. 21 in the class. While this isn’t solid proof of partiality on the part of On3, it’s certainly a noticeable trend – but it doesn’t stop at recruiting.
On3 posted a way-too-early top 25 ranking, put together by none other than Shaw himself. Arkansas was nowhere to be found. Again, this isn’t hard proof by itself; it’s an opinion-based ranking. But the Razorbacks return the second-most minutes in the country and are one of the more seasoned rosters in the SEC, so Arkansas’ absence from his rankings was peculiar, to say the least.
Power 5 college basketball teams with the most projected returning minutes, per Torvik:
Purdue 69.7%
Arkansas 59.3%
Marquette 53.8%
Stanford 53.8%
Notre Dame 53.5%
SMU 50.8%
BYU 49.9%
Ohio State 49.8%
Northwestern 49.7%
VT 46.5%
Illinois 45.0%
UCLA/ISU 43.0%
MSU 41.7% pic.twitter.com/2885Rrsxif— College Basketball Report (@CBKReport) May 5, 2025
While Calipari can once again vindicate himself by dominating with Acuff and Thomas on the court in 2025-26, and Andrews the following season, the latest batch of intel on the starlets in the Class of 2026 suggests Cal will have to do it on the recruiting trail, too.
On3/Rivals last week updated its top 150 basketball prospects list for the 2026 class, naming a few big-time Arkansas basketball targets in the top 10. Unfortunately, Shaw doesn’t project the Razorbacks to land a single one.
On3’s latest predictions suggest that Calipari is gaining traction on a few of his elite 2026 targets, but Shaw won’t quite give Arkansas the edge. The Razorbacks are firmly in the mix for three top prospects, according to Shaw: small forward Tyran Stokes, point guard Jordan Smith Jr. and power forward Miikka Muurinen. However, Shaw gave Kentucky the nod for Stokes, Duke for Smith and NC State for Muurinen.
Apart from those three, Shaw mentions Arkansas while discussing a couple other prospects. Although the Hogs may not be a “threat” to land these starlets in his eyes, Shaw mentions that Taylen Kinney (predicted to go to Louisville) and Arafan Diane (Houston) have Arkansas visit dates set. Both Kinney and Diane have the Razorbacks in their top 12 schools.
Given Calipari’s reputation as a top-tier recruiter, it’s hard to believe he’s not projected to land a single top-10 player. It’s tempting to dismiss Shaw’s report as just more noise from another doubter—if only other outlets weren’t saying the exact same thing.
Shaw may seemingly have a history of anti-Arkansas/Calipari takes lately, but 247Sports analysts Travis Branham and Eric Bossi don’t share the same pattern.
Branham’s reports line up almost exactly with Shaw’s. He doesn’t mention Miikka Muurinen in his latest report, but Branham has Arkansas in the mix with Stokes, Smith, Kinney, and Diane, but gives the same schools the edge for all four of them as Shaw. On3’s Joe Tipton also reports Duke being in the lead for Smith and Houston for Diane, with Arkansas close behind.
Arkansas looked strong early with Andrews’ commitment. He remained the highest-ranked commit off the board for months, giving Calipari a solid foundation. Even now, Andrews and west coast five-star guard Jason Crowe Jr. (Missouri) are the only committed prospects in the top 20. Despite the hot start, the Razorbacks suddenly find themselves needing to catch up to stay near the top.
But Calipari is a Hall of Fame coach for a reason – most of all for his reputation as the greatest recruiter of all time. If he wants a player, he has the ability – the aura, if you will – to land any one of the five recruits above with Arkansas ties. But what if he doesn’t find any of them particularly interesting?
High school recruiting has been the lifeblood of Calipari’s career. But now, if things don’t pan out on the high school front, he can pick up the slack on the transfer portal front.
Injuries hampered both of their campaigns, but Johnell Davis and Jonas Aidoo played key roles on the Razorbacks’ Sweet 16 run in March. This offseason, the transfer big man duo of Malique Ewin (Florida State) and Nick Pringle (South Carolina) supplements the returning cast and five-star freshman duo.
So far, On3/Rivals have awarded five-star status to just two prospects in the 2026 class, which could signal a weaker high school class on paper. That’s not definitive, as outlets typically wait until later in the cycle to dish out fifth stars, but ESPN reports the 2027 NBA Draft class (aka the one-and-dones from the 2026 high school class) will be much weaker than the last two groups.
But a major shakeup occurred on Thursday when small forward Babatunde “Baba” Oladotun, the No. 1 prospect in the 2027 crop, reclassified to 2026. The son of a Nigerian boxer who played college hoops at Virginia Tech, the younger Oladotun has a lanky 6-foot-9 frame with a nearly 7-foot wingspan, already drawing comparisons to Kevin Durant. His father, Ibrahim, was inspired to emigrate to the United States by the Nigerian legend Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon.
ESPN’s Paul Biancardi reported that Oladotun immediately becomes a candidate to be a 2027 lottery pick, and that Arkansas will be “heavily involved” in his recruitment alongside Kentucky, Kansas, Duke and many others. The Silver Spring, Md., native will take an official visit to home-state Maryland in September. Even after his reclass, he is still rated as the No. 8 overall prospect in the Class of 2026, per 247Sports. He won’t turn 18 until December in his freshman year of college.
The early signing period is still months away, which gives Coach Cal plenty of time to catch up on his existing priority targets. Even if these top recruits don’t bite, Cal’s track record suggests he’ll make it work, whether that’s through the transfer portal or the new Oladotun opportunity.
If there’s one thing that’s not going to be an issue on a John Calipari team, it’s talent.
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