Arkansas' John Calipari eyes new 'formula' for roster building - ESPN

DESTIN, Fla. — The most jarring sight at the SEC meetings in Destin has been John Calipari walking through the hotel lobby with an Arkansas logo on his pullover.

The most jarring sound Wednesday came from Calipari admitting it will take a new «formula» to win in the NCAA tournament after persistent postseason failures in recent seasons at Kentucky.

Calipari, in his first SEC meetings as the coach at Arkansas, referenced No. 3 seed Kentucky's loss to No. 14 Oakland in the first round of the 2024 NCAA tournament. It included a 32-point outburst from a 24-year old Division II transfer named Jack Gohlke.

«The lesson was you can't do this now with seven freshmen,» he said. «You just can't. You're going to hit a team that's 25 years old on average, one was 26, and that team is physically going to get you, and so now we have a couple transfers that are older, some kids that transferred from Kentucky that went through it, and they're a year older, and some freshmen.»

While Calipari's age estimates contain some of his penchant for exaggeration, the point of him addressing his postseason failures and making a concise pivot in his team building is significant.

Calipari left Kentucky after just one NCAA tournament win in the past four seasons and a feeble 1-4 mark in SEC tournament games over the same period. The NCAA tournament lowlights included a loss to No. 15 seed Saint Peter's in the first round in 2022.

In the wake of those postseason flops, Calipari admitted his formula of collecting a bevy of top high school talent doesn't work in modern college basketball. He's making a direct effort to skew older and take more transfers.

«We're not going to take six, seven freshmen now,» Calipari said. «It'll be three or four. Hopefully