The UK Fans Who Borderline Stalked Cal Really Need to Hear This
There’s a very good chance Arkansas is one of the most-watched teams in college basketball this season.
Not only do the Razorbacks have a large following themselves, but they’ll also attract a national audience because of their offseason splash hire of John Calipari.
What could really push Arkansas up in the Nielsen ratings, though, are all of the Kentucky basketball fans who will obsessively hate-watch their former coach.
Don’t believe us? Consider the story Chuck Barrett relayed via the Chuck & Bo Show on Monday.
The UA radio play-by-play man said a couple of Kentucky fans attended Arkansas’ charity exhibition game against TCU at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth for the sole purpose of heckling Calipari.
“There were a couple of guys right behind the Razorback bench who were dressed from head to toe in Kentucky garb,” Barrett said. “I’ve come to understand in the last 24-48 hours how obsessed Kentucky fans still are with John Calipari. I mean, super obsessed.”
As he saw it, the Kentucky basketball interlopers “were not pulling for TCU, they weren’t really pulling against Arkansas, but they were pulling against Cal.”
Barrett said he and his radio partner, former Arkansas assistant coach Matt Zimmerman, had to listen to the Kentucky fans all game. It probably didn’t help that the Razorbacks squandered a 13-point lead and lost in the closing seconds.
Of course, the reason for such odd behavior may be rooted in something much deeper. Barrett speculated that at least a segment of the fan base is actually afraid of Calipari having success at Arkansas, comparing them to a “jilted lover.”
That comment got a laugh out of co-host Bo Mattingly, who seemed to agree with Barrett’s sentiment.
“It’s like, I’m kicking you out, we’re breaking up, but I don’t want anybody else to have you. That’s the Kentucky fans,” Mattingly said. “I’m tired of you, but how dare you go be happy?”
For those needing visual proof such a thing occurred, here you go:
Further Evidence of an Obsession
They can deny it all they want, but Chuck Barrett is exactly right about Kentucky fans. They truly are obsessed with John Calipari and have been since he left Lexington to take over the Arkansas basketball program.
In fact, the radio personality who shared the video clip of the Kentucky fans at the Arkansas-TCU exhibition is the same guy who once claimed Arkansas fans were like “the obsessive new boyfriend stalking the Ex’s social media.” You can’t make this stuff up:
Of course, it’d be unfair to lump all Wildcat fans into one group.
A poster on The House of Blue message board on Cats Illustrated, the Kentucky Rivals site, described going to the TCU exhibition game for the sole purpose of heckling Calipari as a “complete dork move.”
Another fan spoke more broadly, delivering a message that would behoove many Kentucky fans – especially the ones who borderline stalked Calipari in DFW – to heed.
“I also feel like this board may be spending a little too much attention and energy on Arkansas when the regular season hasn’t even started lol,” the fan wrote. “We are free from Cal – no need to linger on him.”
Sadly, that appears to be the minority opinion. Those are just two of 99 replies to a thread about the Razorbacks’ loss to TCU on Friday — which is less than half of the replies as the Kansas exhibition thread, but still a surprising amount for a game that didn’t count and wasn’t even televised. And, of course, didn’t involve Kentucky itself.
Most of the other 97 replies were comments along the lines of “Classic Cal” in response to how Arkansas blew the 13-point lead.
At least one person admitted to watching the stream — which meant tuning in for live stream by Arkansas social media influencer @pinto479 — but many more appeared to just fire from the hip in their assessments of the Razorbacks:
“When John Calipari constructs a roster with zero lottery picks and poor shooting, you can comfortably guarantee they’re not going to be particularly good at the end of the day,” cyber chortled one fan.
Added another: “Arkansas fans are still in the We Have More Talent Than We’ve Had In So Long faze [sic] right now. I’ve been there. It will be funny to watch them find out their coach is washed. I know. I went through it.”
It seems like Barrett was on to something with his hypothesis about why Kentucky fans are so obsessed.
The sheer number of comments from them is evidence enough, but one went so far as to essentially confirm the “jilted lover” theory.
“I’ll be honest, there was a little corner of my subconscious that was worried that Cal would be rejuvenated by a change of scenery and take the world by storm,” one fan posted. “That little notion has now dissipated into a puff of laughter.”
Countdown to Arkansas vs Kentucky
It bears repeating that the TCU game doesn’t actually count toward anything because it was a charity exhibition. Kentucky fans putting that much stock in the Razorbacks losing to the Horned Frogs makes about as much sense as Arkansas fans overreacting to the Kansas win.
Exhibitions don’t mean anything. In the last two years alone, the Razorbacks have lost by 30 and reached the Sweet 16 and beat the No. 2 team in the country only to finish under .500.
That said, playing teams like Kansas and TCU does reveal more than blowout wins over random Division II schools — like, say, Kentucky Wesleyan and Minnesota State.
Things get real this week. The Wildcats will officially begin the Mark Pope era against Wright State at 6 p.m. CT Monday and then don’t play again until Saturday.
That means ESPN should plan for a surge in traffic for Arkansas’ opener against Lipscomb at 7 p.m. CT Wednesday, otherwise the Kentucky basketball fans may crash the SEC Network-Plus servers.
There’s no telling what kind of ratings John Calipari’s return to Rupp Arena will draw on Feb. 1, as the Arkansas vs Kentucky showdown is shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated regular-season games in all of college basketball this year.
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More coverage of Arkansas basketball — and Kentucky basketball — from BoAS…
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