John Calipari reaffirms confidence in Mark Pope at Kentucky: 'He's the right guy for that job'

It’s been two seasons since John Calipari left Kentucky to coach at Arkansas, leading the Wildcats to hire Mark Pope as his replacement. With the Razorbacks and Wildcats set to meet on Saturday in Fayetteville, Calipari gave a compliment to Pope for the job he has done.

In particular, he gave Pope props for turning things around for Kentucky, which had a rough start to SEC with back-to-back losses. The Wildcats would respond with five straight wins, though they saw that streak snapped on Tuesday evening against Vanderbilt.

“They’re playing great,” Calipari said. “Mark Pope’s doing a great job. For them to struggle and them him to get them going, he’s the right guy for that job. He is.”

After those two losses to begin SEC play, Kentucky was 9-6 overall on the season. However, the 5-1 record since then has them right behind Arkansas (16-5, 6-2 SEC) in the conference standings heading into this matchup.

Overall since taking over at Kentucky, Pope is 38-19 and took the Wildcats to the Sweet Sixteen in his first season. Calipari is an identical 38-19 in the same time since taking over at Arkansas and also went to the Sweet Sixteen last season.

The Razorbacks coach was asked whether he will have any lingering emotions upon facing his former team. However, he claimed not to be thinking about such narratives, instead simply focused on the opportunity to get another win and continue climbing up the SEC standings.

“I don’t think so,” Calipari said of whether he would feel any strong emotions facing the Wildcats. “What I would say is, it’s the next game. We’re in a different position. We kind of flipped the switch. Last year, what were we when we went to play them? Then we got them pretty good. But we were 1-6. Somebody said it was Kentucky and I didn’t care who it was. We needed to beat somebody.

“Now, the only significance of the game to me is we need to keep winning because let’s stay pace with what’s going on and people around us.”

Regardless, it’s sure to be a storyline that is talked about leading up to the matchup between Arkansas and Kentucky. Tip off is set for 5:30 p.m. CT on Saturday from Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville as both John Calipari and Mark Pope hope to notch another SEC win.