John Calipari’s SEC start could not be going worse at Arkansas

John Calipari spent his last 15 seasons as the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, proving to be as successful as any head coach in college basketball. He went 410-123 overall and won a national championship with that program, but not without several hiccups, particularly near the end of his tenure. He wound up departing Kentucky for the Arkansas Razorbacks after another disappointing exit in the NCAA Men's Tournament.

Calipari's Razorbacks got off to a decent start in non-conference play, winning 11 of their 13 games to begin their year. Their play against SEC competition, though, is what their fans had been waiting for. Calipari leading a roster that has a good amount of talent on it had Razorbacks fans thinking they could make some noise in the SEC. Unfortunately, early returns appear far from stellar.

Arkansas was embarrassed by the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday to open conference play. Sure, there's no shame in losing to arguably the best team in the country on the road, but the final score was 76-52. This game was essentially over in the first half.

Things only took a turn for the worse on Wednesday for Calipari and Co.

Frustrating start to SEC play takes another turn in wrong direction for Arkansas

The Razorbacks started the game red-hot. They held the Ole Miss Rebels to just one point over the first five minutes of the game and held a nine-point lead. They led by nine points again with seven minutes to go in the first half but allowed Ole Miss to finish the half on a 15-6 run to tie the score at the break.

As disappointing as it was to see the half end up in a tie when the Razorbacks got off to a solid start, the game was far from over. There was reason to believe an elite-level coach like Calipari would steer the team in the right direction to win this game that they had controlled for much of the first half. Unfortunately, it just wasn't meant to be.

The Rebels began the second half on a 17-7 run and never looked back from there. They led by as many as 11 points in the second half and wound up winning this game 73-66, dropping Arkansas to 0-2 in SEC play.

Obviously, there's a lot of time for Arkansas to right itself, but this start is the last thing Calipari wanted to witness. Again, losing on the road in Tennessee was expected, but being uncompetitive in that game was unacceptable. To go from that to blowing a couple of different nine-point leads to lose at home in a game they were favored to win before the ball was tipped is incredibly frustrating.

Things will only get tougher for Arkansas in a really tough conference. Hopefully, Calipari can find a way to right the ship sooner rather than later.