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Arkansas basketball fans had to sweat out a close road win over Oklahoma on Tuesday night.
But those who left their TV on ESPN afterwards were treated to quite the dessert dish. Kentucky basketball had a Nashville nightmare against No. 18 Vanderbilt, losing 80-55. Ironically, Arkansas beat the Commodores by that same margin.
The Wildcats shot just 32% from the field, had nearly twice as many turnovers (15) as assists (8) and looked lifeless on defense. The embarrassing loss could best be summed up by one play midway through the second half, when senior guard Otega Oweh and freshman center Malachi Moreno’s foolish miscommunication on an inbounds play resulted in a turnover.
The Mark Pope experiment is going well. pic.twitter.com/b4wt7ALHKQ
Vanderbilt basketball coach Mark Byington felt for the Kentucky fans who traveled through snowy conditions to watch their team, offering a quick remedy.
“Maybe the people wearing blue didn’t feel good, but they can get down on Broadway and get drunk,” Byington said postgame. “Drink a lot. It’s cold out there right now.”
With Arkansas hosting the Wildcats on Saturday evening, the Razorback faithful will be hoping to welcome Big Blue Nation to Dickson Street for similar sorrow-drowning.
It’s been a long season for Kentucky fans so far, enduring blowout losses to Louisville, Michigan State and Gonzaga in non-conference play. After an 0-2 start to league play, head coach Mark Pope candidly said he spent “a lot of time feeling like I’d like to curl up in bed and kill myself, but that’s actually not what we do.” That’s some passion former Arkansas head coach (and Kentucky alum) John Pelphrey would be proud of.
Then came a five-game streak. No, it wasn’t pretty, requiring double-digit comebacks against LSU and Tennessee, but it at least lifted spirits until what Pope described as a “disaster” vs the Commodores.
Sea of Blue’s Nick Wheatley didn’t mince words with his assessment, labeling the win streak a “fluke.”
“Otega Oweh was bad. Malachi Moreno was bullied,” Wheatley wrote in his review of Tuesday night’s wreckage. “Andrija Jelavic looked lost. Jasper Johnson resembled a middle schooler, and this level of basketball just is not it for Trent Noah (or Mark Pope for that matter).”
The Wildcats have played eight games away from home this season, trailing by at least 17 points in all but one of those contests and winning just three.
Wheatley went as far as saying that the “Billy G. vibes were at an all-time high yet again,” referring to Billy Gillispie, whose 59.7% winning percentage in charge is the lowest of any UK head coach in the last 100 years.
After he was mercifully fired in 2009, John Calipari stepped in and immediately revived the program with an Elite Eight, Final Four and national title in his first three seasons in Lexington.
As losses pile up, Kentucky hasn’t been able to escape the elephant in the room – UK’s roster cost a reported $22 million.
“Pope built what is believed to be the most expensive team ever in college basketball,” The Athletic’s CJ Moore wrote in December. “What once felt like a flex has now turned into a scarlet letter.”
It didn’t help that due to the peculiar setup of Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gymnasium, cameras captured Kentucky breaking down its pregame team huddle with the rallying cry of “touch money” – incredibly fitting.
So at Vandy, the media shares a tunnel with the away team 😂 pic.twitter.com/Umt6RYIsfT
With the loss, the Wildcats dropped down to fifth in the SEC standings, with seven conference foes ranked ahead of them in KenPom. Victory over Vanderbilt would have put Kentucky at 6-2, tied for second in the league with Arkansas.
If it weren’t for Kentucky’s struggles, College Gameday would likely be in Fayetteville on Saturday. Instead, the iconic show is headed to Lawrence to cover No. 13 BYU against No. 14 Kansas, featuring projected top NBA Draft picks AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson.
The blowout in Nashville might have dimmed some of the national luster heading into the game, but rest assured that both fanbases involved will enter the match at a fever pitch.
Perhaps the most stunning hardwood result in the SEC last year was Arkansas’ upset win over Kentucky in Calipari’s return to Rupp Arena.
The Razorbacks started league play 1-6 and were in desperate need of a trajectory-changing win. Big Blue Nation rained down boos on their former coach, with his eyebrow-raised reaction becoming iconic after Arkansas ran away with a 10-point victory.
John Calipari enters Rupp Arena to a chorus of boos. pic.twitter.com/xibCj95EkZ
Both teams ended up reaching the Sweet 16. Fast forward a year, however, and many Kentucky fans are having buyer’s remorse for running Calipari out of town. Yahoo columnist Dan Wolken, an Arkansas native, warned fans not to let all the trolling result in historical revisionism.
“If Pope doesn’t work out, the Kentucky fanbase is going to catch hell for years,” Wolken tweeted Wednesday. “But the reality is Calipari needed a change. Let’s not rewrite history. It was stale and he was becoming miserable. He has been better and more fun at Arkansas.”
Coach Cal, too, poured cold water on Big Blue Nation’s flaming pitchforks in Tuesday’s postgame presser.
“They’re playing great. Mark Pope’s doing a great job,” Calipari said. “For them to struggle and then for him to get them going, he’s the right guy for the job.”
The bloodbath in Nashville that unfolded over the next two hours certainly didn’t help that take age well. Regardless, a vote of confidence from your predecessor (who’s now at an SEC rival) isn’t the best look for Pope. Neither is another rival coach giving your fans advice on how to drown their sorrows.
With Arkansas being the higher-ranked team this time around, Calipari tried to brush off the notion that this game carries extra significance: “Last year somebody said, ‘It was Kentucky!’ I didn’t care who it was. We needed to beat somebody. Now the only significance to me is that we need to keep winning.”
On Saturday, the script will be reversed. It’s Pope and Kentucky who will march into hostile territory needing to make a statement win. Arkansas, meanwhile, can move atop the league standings depending on how Texas A&M fares at Georgia.
The high temperature in Fayetteville on Saturday is 22 degrees, and it’ll be close to single digits when the game ends.
Arkansas winning again would send Kentucky sliding further down the SEC standings – and Wildcat fans stumbling down Dickson Street with no real remedy in sight.
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More coverage of Arkansas basketball from BoAS:
Michael Main is a Fayetteville native who, like both of his older brothers, attended the University of Arkansas. Main graduated in 2025 with a double major in journalism and political science and a minor in legal studies. He spent his childhood following the Razorbacks closely and attending as many games as possible, witnessing iconic moments like the Michael Qualls put-back dunk, the Henry Heave and a number of field stormings. Main was a member of the Razorback Marching Band and Hogwild Pep Band, attending every home football and basketball game while he was a student and traveling to San Francisco, Providence, Tampa and elsewhere for postseason play. After freelancing for BoAS for a year and a half, the 22-year-old made the transition to a full-time role as senior writer following his graduation. In his free time, Main is likely spending time outdoors, enjoying the company of friends or feeding his obsession with Liverpool FC and European football as a whole.
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