On the eve of the Final Four, Yurachek and Calipari spoke for nearly an hour about potential candidates to replace Musselman.
Arkansas wanted to make a splashy hire and was prepared to spend big on salary, NIL and other support for its basketball program.
As the two men departed the room, Yurachek came to a conclusion: maybe the perfect candidate was right in front of him.
“Why not you? Why wouldn’t you be interested?” Yurachek asked Calipari, according to Arkansas sources.
“Well, I haven’t spent much time on it, but we can talk some,” Calipari said.
Calipari left the meeting and conversations continued with Tyson.
“Last time, we didn’t get this done,” Tyson told Calipari, referring to when the Razorbacks pursued Calipari when he was at Memphis about 17 years ago. “Do you want this thing? Let’s get this done.”
Soon enough, Calipari’s attorney, Tom Mars (who went to law school at Arkansas), reached out to Calipari about the job. The full-court press was on.
By Saturday morning, a formal term sheet declaring interest had been sent to Calipari. As negotiations were underway, Calipari grappled with the end of his 15-year run at Kentucky that included an NCAA championship and three more Final Four berths.
Calipari is one of only a few coaches to lead a program to four Final Fours in a five-year span (2011-2015).
“He’s got one fault: He’s an extremely loyal person,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Kentucky’s not an on- and off-switch job.
What the Kentucky coach and what Kentucky basketball means there … John filled those shoes in a way that I promise you this: One day, Kentucky is going to look back and say that we need a John Calipari banner up there.”
As the weekend concluded, Calipari and Arkansas neared an agreement on the terms for his arrival, which would represent a colossal shakeup in college basketball.
Calipari owned the era of the one-and-done with a revolving door of NBA stars in Lexington, but now another program had piqued his interest at the right place and right time. Sources close to Calipari say he still regrets turning down the UCLA job in 2019. That was the time to bolt, he now admits privately. But Kentucky ponied up a 10-year, $86 million contract to keep him in Lexington, and the Bruins couldn’t match.
