Arkansas is almost at the start line, and the first real peek at this season comes Saturday in Bud Walton Arena against Gonzaga. The exhibition tips at 3 p.m.
(CDT) and will be streamed on SEC Network+. Both teams arrive with preseason buzz after landing in the AP Top 25 - Arkansas at No. 12 and Gonzaga at No. 15 - and John Calipari made it clear he wants the matchup to feel like more than a tune-up.
At Tuesday’s unofficial media day, Calipari laid out the spirit of the exhibition he and Mark Few agreed to bring to the floor. No zone.
Plenty of pressure. And a game built to create problems, not comfort.
"Mark, and I talked the other day. I said, 'Do you have your zone in yet?
Nope, I have no zone. Great, neither one of us are playing zone," Calipari said.
"'Do you want me to press some?' He said, 'Yeah, we'll press.'
Let's press each other so that we can turn it over and at least have something to teach. I told him our out-of-bounds plays.
'These are what we have.' He told me his out-of-bounds plays.
We're friends."
That means anyone hoping for an early look at Arkansas working against a zone defense will have to wait. Saturday sounds more like a 94-foot test, with both teams trying to force mistakes and make the exhibition useful for coaching purposes. Calipari said he wants the game to be a war, even if that means taking some lumps.
"I want it to be a war. When you're playing this type of team, there are times you're saying, 'I hope we get beat, so I can grab the attention of this team.' ...
We've been beat up a little bit, but we've had more than I've had other years, where I'm playing five and six guys. So, we should have a full roster of 10-11 being able to play in that game."
One of the fresh faces drawing attention is Miikka Muurinen, the Finnish 7-footer who was not eligible for Arkansas’ summer trip to the Bahamas but has since been cleared. He gave fans a glimpse of his game at the "Primetime at the Palace" event earlier this month, and the toolkit is obvious: scoring inside, stepping out for 3s, putting the ball on the floor and using his athleticism and length on defense.
Muurinen described himself as someone who wants to impact every part of the game.
"I always try to do everything on the court," Muurinen said. "Whether it's defense, offense, whatever you need me to do.
I just want to do it 100% and I just want to help the team win. So, I'm doing whatever I can - rebounding, defending, assists, whatever I need to do."
He also said the biggest thing over the summer was staying steady with his work while he waited to become eligible. From there, his focus shifted to reading the game better on both ends and getting more comfortable with the speed and flow of live action.
"I feel my biggest focus was just staying consistent with my work," Muurinen said. "Just showing up every day, working hard.
That was probably probably the biggest thing for me throughout the summer. ... Now, the biggest thing I've worked on this summer is probably making the right read in the right situations, so whether that's offense or defense, just working making a right read in that situation."
Muurinen also shared a light moment with Jeremiah Wilkinson and Amere Brown during the media session, when the three moved their chairs together and started joking around like they were running a small interview room of their own. The banter kept rolling as the scrum grew around Muurinen, with Brown even turning on his phone flash as if he were conducting his own interview. Wilkinson then asked Muurinen how excited he was to play this weekend, only for Muurinen to laugh and tell him to "please, take a seat, bro."
It was a small scene, but the kind that says something about the group’s comfort level before the season starts.
Jordan Smith Jr. offered another glimpse into the makeup of this Arkansas team, and specifically the edge he brings to it. Calipari has already praised the 6-2, 205-pound freshman guard’s competitiveness, and Smith said that trait has been part of him for a long time. He believes it raises the level of everyone around him.
"If you want to win, then you're going to be competitive," Smith explained. "That's been the biggest thing I've always had since I've been playing basketball, is my competitive nature. It's always brought my teammates up.
"I know it's a different level and it's not the same as high school, but for us to win a national championship, for us to be the best that we can be, and just for us to have fun on the court together, we're going to have to be competitive. I wouldn't say it starts by me, but part of it starts with me, the leader of the team. We've just got to do better, and the competitiveness is going to come."
In Other News...
Arkansas Fans Can Read Plenty Into This Program Review
The University of Arkansas Board of Trustees has been taking a closer look at the athletic department and football program since the lopsided Week 2 loss, and that alone has been enough to get plenty of attention around the program. In the meantime, Ryan Silverfield has tried to steady the conversation, saying in a recent interview that he believes the resources will be there and that leadership is working to put the team in position to be successful beginning with the 2027 season.
For Arkansas fans, the timing is hard to ignore, especially with athletic director Hunter Yurachek still in place for now even as speculation about his future continues to swirl beyond the football season. A review of this kind can mean a lot of things, but it rarely happens without creating questions about where the program is headed next, who will be steering it, and how quickly any changes might start to show up on the field. [Read more 🡒]
Arkansas Freshmen Are Making Caliparis Rotation Battle Harder To Ignore
John Caliparis early-season approach at Arkansas has already taken on a different look, with the Razorbacks working through a deeper rotation than fans got used to in his previous stops. Instead of leaning on a tight core, Calipari has been using 10 to 11 players, and that has opened the door for several freshmen to stay in the conversation even if they are not yet regulars in the highest-leverage minutes.
Maper Maker, Caleb Ourigou and Davion Thompson are all sitting near the back end of the rotation right now, but each has given the staff something to think about. Maker has drawn notice for his size and his play, while Ourigou and Thompson arrived early after reclassifying, a move that accelerated their development and brought them into this mix sooner than expected. In a season where Calipari is already sorting through more options than usual, the question is how long it takes before those young players force the issue even more. [Read more 🡒]
Calipari Is Betting On One Freshman To Push Arkansas Forward
John Calipari is once again leaning into a roster model built around true freshmen, and Arkansas is following that path after a year that showed how quickly elite young talent can reshape a team. The Razorbacks brought in a freshman group headlined by Jordan Smith Jr., JJ Andrews and Abdou Toure, with Smith drawing national attention as the top incoming player in a Bayesian Performance Rating metric.
Smith also arrives with the kind of mindset Calipari tends to trust. He has talked about leadership and competitiveness as central to winning, and he is working to grow into more of a point guard role while helping guide teammates who bring more experience to the table. For Arkansas, the question is not whether the talent is there, but how quickly that talent can organize itself into a team that moves forward together. [Read more 🡒]