{"id":80091,"date":"2025-07-21T07:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T07:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/80091\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T07:48:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T07:48:13","slug":"calipari-has-made-his-most-brazen-halfway-prediction-yet-as-a-razorback-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/80091\/","title":{"rendered":"Calipari Has Made His Most Brazen Halfway Prediction Yet as a Razorback Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jon<\/a>Photo Credit: Duke Athletics \/ Craven Whitlow<\/p>\n

Just over three months remain until Arkansas basketball season gets underway, and with Razorback football once again projected to finish 14th in the SEC, many Hog fans are already looking ahead to hoops.<\/p>\n

Arkansas returns a large swathe of last year\u2019s Sweet 16 squad to go along with a top-five recruiting class and a pair of experienced big man additions in the transfer portal. The Razorbacks will in all likelihood begin the year as a top 25 team and be one of the central contenders in the SEC alongside Florida, Kentucky, Auburn and others.<\/p>\n

But you won\u2019t hear Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari doing too much boasting about his team\u2019s chances, outside of general praise that he \u201clikes this group\u201d and is \u201chappy with this team.\u201d Since arriving in Fayetteville last spring, the Head Hog has like so many other college coaches tended to be very reserved when it comes to predictions, straying away from calling his shot or predicting specific successes in the regular season or postseason.<\/p>\n

That changed last week when Coach Cal made a somewhat bold proclamation to CBS Sports\u2019 Jon Rothstein about Arkansas\u2019 matchup with Duke in November: \u201cMy guess is it might be the highest-rated regular season game in the last decade when it\u2019s played where it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hogs will face the Blue Devils on Thanksgiving night, Nov. 27, at the United Center, the home of the Chicago Bulls. The game will be broadcast on CBS in a primetime slot of 7 p.m. CT.<\/p>\n

This will be Arkansas\u2019 second straight year participating in CBS\u2019 Thanksgiving Classic. Last year\u2019s Turkey Day matchup with Illinois drew over five million viewers, making it the most-watched regular season game of the year and the second-largest audience<\/a> for a regular season college hoops game since 2008. So that slot certainly gives Calipari a legitimate reason to feel so optimistic. <\/p>\n

Can Arkansas Basketball Make TV History?<\/strong><\/p>\n

NFL football rarely directly benefits Arkansas basketball, but these games coming directly after the NFL\u2019s Thanksgiving Day games are the exception. The only game since 2008 to top the Arkansas vs Illinois game was Arizona\u2019s clash with Michigan State on Thanksgiving Day in 2023, another NFL lead-in slot that boosted viewership numbers up to 5.2 million.<\/p>\n

The Spartans and Wildcats faced off in Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs, Calif., while the Razorbacks and Illini traded blows in the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

This time around, however, there could be a perfect storm on the horizon for Arkansas.<\/p>\n

With all due respect to Illinois, which defeated the Hogs last year and is one of the Big Ten\u2019s premier programs, Duke is on a different level. Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach are off to the NBA after a Final Four appearance last season, but Duke basketball coach Jon Scheyer reloaded with yet another top-ranked recruiting class as well as a few solid transfer additions.<\/p>\n

Five-stars Cameron and Cayden Boozer, Nikolas Khamenia and Dame Sarr will populate a Blue Devils lineup that will almost certainly be one of the top-ranked teams in the country. Playing in an NBA arena in the Windy City also makes it a better environment than both Kansas City or Palm Springs.<\/p>\n

The primetime Thanksgiving slot with the NFL lead-in audience was already a great start. But adding in a blue blood like the Blue Devils creates a recipe that will have TV executives wagging their tails.<\/p>\n

John Calipari\u2019s Kentucky Wildcats garnered four million viewers in a 2013 matchup with Michigan State that also took place in the United Center. Tom Izzo\u2019s top-ranked Spartans narrowly defeated Coach Cal\u2019s second-ranked Cats.<\/p>\n

The king of the hill here also involves Calipari. In 2008, his No. 1 rated Memphis rated took on Bruce Pearl\u2019s No. 2-ranked Tennessee Volunteers in a 2008 non-conference showdown that brought in 5.28 million viewers, which remains the network record<\/a>. That Tigers team was led by point guard Derrick Rose, who tallied 23 points in a close loss<\/a> and would go on to be selected first overall in the NBA Draft and the become the most electrifying guard in Chicago Bulls history outside of No. 23 himself, Michael Jordan. <\/p>\n

This past January, a few Hog fans gave Calipari some grief for so quickly heading to the United Center<\/a> after a blowout loss to Tennessee for a Derrick Rose tribute night. Don\u2019t expect any such hang-wringing about the head Hog heading to Chicago this time around, though.<\/p>\n

Combining the Thanksgiving time slot, blue-blood opponent and the likely high rankings of both teams, Calipari may just break his own record this November on the same court Rose dominated for years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very likely the former NBA MVP will be watching court-side. <\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

More coverage of Arkansas basketball from BoAS:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo Credit: Duke Athletics \/ Craven Whitlow Just over three months remain until Arkansas basketball season gets underway,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":80092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1907,1629,4346,23316,2496,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-80091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-breaking","10":"tag-duke","11":"tag-john-calipari","12":"tag-jon-rothstein","13":"tag-jon-scheyer","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-basketball","16":"tag-ncaabasketball","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114890126399419119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}