John Calipari isn’t pretending this first look at his Arkansas team will be tidy.
The Razorbacks open their exhibition trip Friday in Nassau against the Bahamas National Team, and Calipari made it clear he expects a real test for a roster that is still very much under construction. It’s the first chance for fans to watch his third Arkansas team face outside competition, and it comes with plenty of uncertainty attached.
“My expectation for today: the Bahama National Team is not the team that Louisville played,” Calipari said Friday on the Chuck and Bo Show. “It should be interesting.
“I’m anxious to see, one, if we can be as good defensively as I think we could be, if we’ll really play for each other which is all we’ve been doing in practice. Just create for each other and play that way. Pass sometimes just to pass.”
He didn’t stop there. Calipari said he could live with a loss in this setting, pointing to the makeup of a national team and the challenge that brings.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we got beat. When I talk about the Bahamas National Team, they may have a 30-year-old on there.
It’s their national team. It’s not the guy that, when you left the plane, grabbed your bags and now he’s playing that night against you.
That’s not what it is.
“But we’ll see. Let the kids go out there and have some fun and see where we are. This is where you have a ball competing, have a ball defending, take great pride in it, and let’s just see where we are.”
Arkansas’ biggest issue right now is age, or really the lack of it. Friday’s game will be the first college action for seven of the team’s eight freshmen. Miikka Murrinen won’t play because his eligibility has not yet been approved by the NCAA.
That means this trip is about more than the scoreboard. It’s a live-action dress rehearsal before the season starts, a chance for a young group to feel out the speed and physicality of someone else across from them instead of teammates.
Calipari said the early-season bumps are part of the deal with teams like this one.
“If you have watched my teams the last two years... early in the season we’re ugly, we start getting better, and then you hit stride in January and February and you start saying, ‘Okay, let’s see what we can do.’ This will be no different,” Calipari said.
“Right now, the only player playing that played last year [is] Billy Richmond. That’s it.
All new guys.
“Most of the guys are young. Our old guys are 20 years old.
The guys are calling them "unc." ‘C’mon, unc’, like he’s your uncle.
But he’s 20, you’re 18, you’re 19. We’re really young.”
Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. CT, with coverage on FloSports.
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