John Calipari’s $1 Million+ NIL Power Play Leaves Threat Looming Over Arkansas’ March Madness Quest

Whatever team you put John Calipari in charge of, he’s going to find a way to win. The Hall of Famer head coach in his first year at Arkansas just upped the season record to 8-2 after last night’s wild 89-87 encounter with Michigan. This year, the Razorbacks are finally looking like a strong SEC team rather than a losing one. And one of the major factors is an FAU transfer, per one analyst.

College basketball coach Matt McCall discusses Arkansas on the latest episode of Field of 68: After Dark, where Johnell Davis stands out to him the most. “The one guy that seems a little bit out of the mix is Nelly Davis. And when you watched FAU play the last two seasons, there was a lot of guys that struggled on that FAU team handling expectations. Nelly Davis wasn’t one of them,” McCall says.

“We’re looking now at all those guys that made the run to the Final Four and Dusty’s now at Michigan and obviously they lost to Arkansas last week.” Davis was instrumental in leading Florida Atlantic to the Final Four two years ago.

He also remains the only player in college basketball to score at least 25 points, grab 10 rebounds, dish 5 assists, and get 5 steals in an NCAA game. No wonder McCall is a fan of Davis, who was reportedly offered a $1 million NIL deal to transfer to Fayetteville.

Then he discusses Coach Calipari, who is coming off a successful career at the University of Kentucky. Although he coached there from 2009 to the last season, the Wildcats only saw a championship in 2012. And yet it can’t be denied that they were considered powerhouses under Calipari. The same will be true of the Arkansas Razorbacks.

“For Cal, you look at his record, you look at his resume, he always finds a way to win 25-26 games,” McCall continues. “If you take out those pandemic years, he’s always gonna find a way to win that amount of games. What’s he gonna do come March? What happens in the NCAA tournament? We tend to overreact when they lose some games. They’re a talented team and talent takes over in some games.”

Does that mean Calipari won’t make mistakes? Despite his years of experience, he’s only human, and couldn’t help admitting to two “dumb” decisions from the game vs Michigan yesterday.

“What in the world was I thinking?”: John Calipari on almost costing Arkansas the game

All season long so far, although the Razorbacks had dropped only two games while winning more, they didn’t look like a championship-winning team yet. Something fans could put their trust in. That all changed after the Fayetteville squad defeated Michigan at Madison Square Garden, perhaps the best place to win a basketball game. And yet, John Calipari made two decisions that could have overturned the game.

Changing an easy baseline out-of-bounds play to something more difficult when Arkansas barely led with a one-point lead and then letting Trevon Brazile get fouled as Michigan pressed on because Brazile also missed both his free throws. “That even shows you, even having experience, you can do some dumb things sometimes,” Calipari said after the game.

“Hopefully, I’ll help them win more games than I’m going to cause them to lose, but that one, they saved me because I would have been in the throws of, ‘What in the world was I thinking?’”

Fortunately for the coach, his team had enough presence of mind to know what to do, despite Johnell Davis almost losing the ball. Ultimately it was he who made the shot, claiming that final victory as the scoreboard read in favor of the Razorbacks. Next, they face in-state rival Central Arkansas on Saturday.