Indiana is about to see John Calipari from the other bench again, and the timing makes the matchup even more intriguing.
On November 17, the Hoosiers will face Arkansas at Madison Square Garden in New York City, setting up a non-conference showdown that also puts Calipari back in front of Indiana after years away. It will be the first time that has happened since December 10, 2011, a date that still sits at the center of Indiana basketball memory.
That night produced the “Wat Shot,” when Christian Watford buried a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to lift unranked Indiana past No. 1 Kentucky, 73-72. The shot became part of Hoosiers lore immediately and has stayed there ever since, one of the defining moments of college basketball in the 2010s.
Happy 3️⃣5️⃣th, Christian Watford! 🥳
We're celebrating with the former #iubb star's iconic buzzer-beater to down No. 1 Kentucky. @IndianaMBB x @Cwat205 pic.twitter.com/Q0RZG4gwWL
- Big Ten Men's Basketball (@B1GMBBall) April 28, 2026
Calipari never seemed to forget it. After that loss, he famously said he would not play Indiana again, specifically at Assembly Hall, ever again.
For years, Indiana and Kentucky had met almost every season going back to the 1960s, building one of college basketball’s strongest non-conference rivalries. The Wat Shot changed that.
After 2011, the teams did not meet in a regular-season game again until 2025, by which point Calipari was already at Arkansas. That long gap only made the matchup feel more unusual.
Now Indiana gets Arkansas instead, and that brings the same old Calipari storyline with it.
For Darian DeVries, the game arrives at a useful moment. In his second season in Bloomington, he has a chance to use a marquee opponent to measure where his team stands and to give Indiana fans something they can rally around.
His first year at IU did not deliver much momentum. The Hoosiers finished 18-14 overall and 9-11 in Big Ten play, then stumbled badly with a 1-6 finish that knocked them out of March Madness contention. Indiana managed just one win over a ranked opponent in those 18 victories, and the season offered more frustration than progress.
Arkansas is not coming in empty-handed, either. The Razorbacks lost a lot of production from last season, but they still project as a Final Four contender.
Calipari also adds the No. 1 recruiting class in the country, and ESPN’s way-too-early Top-25 rankings have Arkansas at No. 11.
So Indiana gets the chance, once again, to face Calipari with plenty hanging over the matchup. For the Hoosiers, it is a shot at a quality win. For Calipari, it is another reminder of a night in Bloomington that never really went away.
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