FAYETTEVILLE — John Calipari was noticeably more animated on the sideline during Arkansas’ 76-53 win over Robert Morris inside Bud Walton Arena on Wednesday.
That included a fiery exchange with Miikka Muurinen 20 seconds into the second half that resulted in Muurinen sitting down and several angry fist pumps in the first half as the Razorbacks struggled to pull away from an RMU team that came into Fayetteville 0-2 after blowout losses to Nevada and UIC.
“Did you kind of notice I coached a little more aggressive today than maybe ever since I’ve been here? That was the 1995 version, the UMass version,” Calipari said, “Which is, I am now having to lead this team. Do I want to do it? What’s my job? What do I tell you every year I’m trying to do? Empower them.”
Arkansas was down 5-0 at the first media timeout and missed its first five shots. That slow start led Robert Morris hang around until the halfway mark of the second half.
“I was really upset,” Calipari said. “Cooper missed a two footer to start the game. Either I don’t start you, or we’re not throwing you the ball to start the game. You can’t miss two footers to start the game, and then we turned it over, probably four to five times. You won’t believe this: you don’t even get a shot when you turn it over. Do you know that? Now you just turn it over. You’re not even getting to shoot it, and then you ask me what happened. We turned it over. We missed a bunny. Missed another bunny. Two, three crazy passes. I think we had six turnovers with 10 minutes to go in the half.”
The Razorbacks led 39-30 at halftime, though Robert Morris hung around and made it a 50-45 game with 12:25 to go.
That’s when Arkansas went on an 18-1 run that finally put the game out of reach and kept Razorback fans from reliving the near-nightmare that was the 2025 Winthrop game.
Wednesday’s game certainly wasn’t always pretty, but it was an important win for a squad fresh off of a black eye against Virginia.
” I am not 40 anymore, but you know what? Whatever they need me to be, that’s what I’m going to be,” Calipari said. “Whatever they need from me, that’s who I’m going to be.”
Arkansas will host Central Arkansas inside Bud Walton Arena at 7 p.m., with coverage on SECN+ and the Razorback Sports Network.
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