Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Here’s a cool fact I just learned about Adou Thiero, the guy who won the game for Arkansas: His father, Almamy, played for John Calipari at Memphis.

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One down, many more to go

John Calipari’s first season in charge of the Arkansas Razorbacks got off to a nightmarish start. After going 11–2 in nonconference play, Arkansas dropped its first five SEC games, including an 83–65 blowout against the Missouri Tigers on Saturday. The five-game losing streak was the second-worst in-conference skid of Calipari’s storied coaching career, only surpassed by a six-game losing streak with the UMass Minutemen in 1989, his first season as a head coach.

The Razorbacks entered Wednesday night’s game against the Georgia Bulldogs as one of only four power-conference teams winless in league play, and early in the second half it looked like they would extend their losing streak to six. Arkansas trailed 46–31 with 15:55 left to play before embarking on an 22–8 run over the next eight minutes to cut the deficit to 54–53. Then Arkansas did what good teams do: It locked in and closed the game out.

Adou Thiero made a jumper in the lane with 30 seconds left to take a 65–63 lead, then, after Georgia’s Asa Newell tied it back up with a pair of free throws, Thiero put the game on ice. He drew a foul with 1.8 seconds left and hit the first shot to take the lead. Then he eliminated all hope of a Georgia comeback by missing the second shot, collecting the rebound while four Bulldogs stood idly by and putting home a layup as time expired.

“To win a game, you’ve got to do the things we haven’t done to win yet,” Thiero said. “Today, we decided to buckle down and really go out there and fight and show everyone we’re here to stay.”

A loss would have sounded all kinds of alarm bells in Fayetteville, but the win doesn’t exactly erase all concerns about the Razorbacks. They may have shown impressive grit in coming from behind to win on Wednesday, but the game was still an ugly one. The Razorbacks shot 18-for-58 from the field, including 3-for-23 from three. The biggest way in which Wednesday’s win differed from the rest of Arkansas’s season was that it made more free-throws than it had in any other game, making 29 of 34 attempts. Calipari said after the game that his team was trying to get to the line more often after only attempting eight free throws in the loss to Mizzou and 13 in a loss to the LSU Tigers in the game before that.

The Razorbacks’ offensive struggles against Georgia were consistent with how they’ve played all season. They’re a thoroughly average offensive team, ranking 83rd in the nation in points per 100 possessions, although they’re stronger on defense (ranked 36th in points allowed per 100 possessions). They’ll have to improve on offense if they’re going to string together more wins and start making a case for a spot in the NCAA tournament. That will be especially difficult now that starting point guard Boogie Fland is expected to miss the rest of the season with a thumb injury.

Arkansas’s slow start is the latest step in Calipari’s steady decline as a coach. His Kentucky Wildcats missed the NCAA tournament in 2021, suffered a stunning defeat to the 15-seed St. Peter’s Peacocks in ’22, bowed out in the second round in ’23 and were eliminated by the No. 14 seed Oakland Grizzles last year. Kentucky ranked 344th out of 362 Division I teams in points allowed per game last season. There were rumblings that the school would consider firing the legendary coach before Arkansas stepped in and hired him.

College basketball has changed a lot since Calipari and his revolving door of one-and-done talents were an annual fixture on the second weekend of March Madness. He’s 65 years old now. The legalization of NIL payments has spread top-tier NBA prospects more equally across the college basketball landscape. More and more future NBA players are skipping college and choosing alternative post-high school paths like Overtime Elite and overseas professional leagues. Calipari was never renowned as a great schematic coach, and now that he doesn’t have the most talented roster in the SEC he’s struggling to find success. Several SEC coaches told veteran college hoops reporter Jeff Goodman last week that they believe Calipari is washed up.

“There’s just no fear now when I see him on the other sideline,” one SEC head coach told Goodman. “The game has changed and he is becoming archaic.”

If Arkansas makes the NCAA tournament this season it might be Calipari’s greatest coaching job ever. The SEC is absolutely loaded, with nine teams currently ranked in the AP top 25, and the Razorbacks still have six games left against those nine ranked teams, three of which are on the road. One game stands out above all the rest, though: Calipari’s return to Lexington against Kentucky on Feb. 1. With the way Arkansas is playing right now, it could be a disappointing homecoming for Coach Cal.

Dec 22, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; Eagles' Saquon Barkley runs the ball against the Commanders.
Washington and Philadelphia meet for the third time this season, with a spot in Super Bowl LIX on the line. | Peter Casey-Imagn Images

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM: Arkansas Snaps Losing Streak, But John Calipari Has a Long Road Ahead.