Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari has always had a knack for getting under people’s skin.
Maybe it’s his fancy suits and colorful personality, or his patented one-and-done recruiting model that rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way. He’s also Italian, which didn’t do him any favors on the east coast in the 1980s and 1990s. Arkansas fans were all too familiar with that anti-Calipari sentiment until about 17 months ago – look no further than his infamous ejection from Bud Walton Arena.
Kentucky fans may have turned sour on Coach Cal toward the end of his tenure, but for a solid decade he was a beloved figure in Lexington.