Arkansas is the SEC tournament champion. Darius Acuff went off, scoring 30 points to lead Arkansas, while also dropping 11 assists and having three rebounds.
After the game, John Calipari spoke about the title and the team mentality, per Trey Wallace of Outkick.
“When you’ve done this a long time and you’re in the business of young people, it is about the name on the back of the jersey. Yes, we’re doing it for Arkansas.. I’ve kind of been that way and done alright at every school I’ve been at. You can say it’s wrong. You can either be P’d off or be peed on,” Calipari said.
Calipari became the first coach to win SEC tournaments at two different schools with the victory. He won the SEC tournament six times with Kentucky, where he coached from 2009 through 2024. He then moved to Arkansas for the 2024-25 campaign. It was also the first time Arkansas had won the tournament since 2000.
Calipari also noted that this was a process that began nearly two decades ago, according to Armando Barry of 40/29 Sunrise News.
“Well, I got a call, and I think it was 2007 from John Tyson when this job opened, and I was at Memphis,” Calipari said. “And I said to him at that time, if I leave, I'm going to leave a bunch of players, and they're stuck. That can't leave. And if they leave, they get to sit out. And that's when I had Derrick Rose, Chris Douglas, Antonia Anderson, Robert Dozier, Joey Dorsey. Good players. And I felt that I couldn't do it to those kids,” the Arkansas coach recalled.
Since that call, rules have changed, which allow players to follow their coach without having to sit out.
“Now, if I stayed, players could leave. If I left, players could leave. They could come with me, or go somewhere else. Totally a different environment,” Calipari continued.
Now, the Hall of Fame coach has a new task in front of him, bringing Arkansas their first title since 1994. Arkansas will find out its next opponent when the brackets are revealed on Sunday night.
