‘I took it as a compliment’ – Musselman on Arkansas hiring Calipari

It took quite the domino effect for Eric Musselman to head to USC and Arkansas ultimately hiring Hall of Fame head coach John Calipari in the spring.

SMU fired Rob Lanier after a 20-win season, which led Andy Enfield to leave USC, opening the door for the Muss Bus to head back to the West Coast, paving the way for John Tyson and Hunter Yurachek to lure Calipari from Lexington.

In hindsight, it is fair to wonder how Musselman feels about being replaced by an active Hall of Fame coach who he battled with in the SEC the previous five seasons.

The former head Hog weighed in on Arkansas’ hiring of Calipari in a recent interview with Jeff Goodman on the Field of 68.

“I’m proud and our family’s proud that Arkansas was able to hire Cal,” Musselman said. “Because he’s arguably the best or one of the greatest coaches college basketball has ever seen. And he is following kind of what we had done the last five years or whatever.

“I look at it as a compliment, Jeff, more so than anything. And Cal’s going to do incredible things just like he does everywhere he goes. I mean, everywhere he goes, he wins.”

For the podcast version of the Field of 68 After Dark interview with Musselman, click HERE for Spotify and HERE for Apple.

Musselman brought up a pair of accurate points in the above quotes. For starters, it is true that it would have been highly unlikely for Arkansas to land Calipari had it not been for the recent run of success he had in bringing the program back to prominence.

Secondly, he is not lying when he says Calipari wins wherever he goes. The numbers don’t lie, and his 855 career victories ranks ninth all-time among D1 men’s basketball coaches.

Similarly to how Musselman’s tenure at Arkansas ended on a low note with his first losing season as a college head coach, Calipari’s wildly successful 15-year run at Kentucky hit the skids the past few years with a number of early exits in the NCAA Tournament.

With that in mind, Musselman was not overly surprised to see Calipari move on for a fresh start at Arkansas.

“I wasn’t shocked,” Musselman said. “Just from an outsider never talking to him about it. But I’m assuming that maybe his time at Kentucky, it was time for him to look elsewhere, whether it would have been Arkansas or anywhere.

“I’m not so sure that he could have been somewhere else as well. You know, if the opportunity would have would have met some of the things that he’s looking for and some of the things that an athletic director or program was looking for.”