FAYETTEVILLE -- New NCAA rules will allow men's basketball to give 15 scholarships instead of 13.
John Calipari was asked on Monday if that will change how he recruits?
"Nope, I’m going to have eight or nine, and then I’m going to fill out the roster," Calipari said. "You know what I can do? I can give walk-ons a scholarship now if I choose to. Maybe I use that somewhere else, maybe I get GA’s that can still play and I use it that way. How about I do that? Now, look, here’s what I don’t want to have. At the end of the year, we’re working — I want to coach every player like he’s a starter, which is what I’ve always done. When you have 12 or 13, that stretches you a little bit. Last year, we ended up with one or two too many after injuries. What you don’t want with this transfer, every kid is a free agent at the end of the year. You have eight or nine, maybe one or two stay but you’re not dealing with 10, 11, 12. Well, you got to do this, you got to start me, you got to do this, no. And I’m not coaching a player so that another guy can coach him. I’m not doing that either. I got my eight or nine.
"When I was at UMass, you’d say times are different. Well, I coached six that could play. They knew not to foul. Don’t foul. But you know what, it may have been the best team I ever coached, and obviously they were really happy. Those six were so happy. They were playing every minute they could play, played guys 38 minutes and we played fast. Went to the Final Four. It wasn’t like — we were number one in the country playing six guys. Played against our walk-ons everyday, had a coach coaching the second group of walk-ons so I wasn’t spending a whole lot of time, needed to focus on them. So, there’s all kinds of ways of doing this and if this isn’t the right way, I’ll change. Normally I change fast, but I’m thinking this is the right way."
Coming from Kentucky where he was known to attract five-star recruits, the one-and-done players has he adjusted or changed anything now at Arkansas?
"All we’ve done is move the headquarters from one place to another," Calipari said. "That’s all. We’re recruiting the same thing, I’m saying the same things in the home that I’ve said for 30 years now. Why would you say the same things in each home? Well, he says it works. It’s been pretty successful, here’s why. I know what I said in every home, I know what I said. I’m not going to say things I don’t remember. Well guess what, I remember because — somebody put out a video of me in a home video. You remember that video? That was Immanuel Quickley’s home visit. There was an Ipad that his aunt or her fiance were using, and they videoed it from that. I can’t remember but I remember the visit. Somebody said have you seen it? Well yeah, I’ve done that visit 1,000 times. It’s the same visit and it becomes this. If you’re drinking, smoking, clubbing or chasing, don’t come here. If you’re not into basketball, if you have a little bit of fraud in you, don’t come here. If you’re delusional, don’t. If you’re a grinder and you want to challenge yourself against really good players, then come here. If you want to see how good you can become but you want to earn it, this is the place. I’m not going to change.
"We’ve got nine really good players out there. Some are gonna play more than others. Why would that be? They earn it. Why would some guys shoot more than other guys? They make more. So you're gonna shoot more. If you want to shoot more, make more, but you got to earn this stuff."
Calipari pointed to a pair of former Arkansas coaches who were very successful with the Razorbacks.
"So it's all different schools, but it's the same," Calipari said. "We look at this. This is Arkansas. This is a special place. This has a history. Two of the former coaches: Hall of Famers — Eddie Sutton and Nolan (Richardson). I mean, that's who coached here."