Arkansas
Arkansas Hoping Early Season Test Pays Dividends
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas coach John Calipari threw his young team to the wolves against No. 8 Baylor. Baylor was coming off of a 101-63 loss against No. 6 Gonzaga and was seeking to atone for getting blown out on national television.
“[Gonzaga coach] Mark Few and I talked,” Calipari said. “I said, ‘Well, thanks. I appreciate you doing that. So now I’ve got to play them.’ We knew they were going to be alert. They lost that game and now they’re coming back here, they played good.”
Arkansas, Baylor and Gonzaga are part of a small group of ranked teams that decided to test themselves early against another ranked foe. The Razorbacks are just one of seven teams to take on such a challenge this early in the season.
“The teams you’re trying to compete with are like this team [or] like a Kansas,” Calipari said. “These kind of people that we’re playing, and then playing them away from our building is important too. To, okay, you don’t have the home crowd riding you, can we come together and do this?”
The last time that Arkansas opted to challenge itself with a ranked opponent within the first two games of a season was the 2009-10 year under John Pelphrey when Arkansas took on No. 20 Louisville.
Arkansas will likely not play another ranked opponent until the CBS Thanksgiving Day Game against Illinois, who is currently the first team out of the Top 25. The next game against Troy will provide the toughest challenge until the marquee game in Kansas City. The Troy Trojans are 2-0 with wins over Toledo and New Orleans and are ranked just outside the Top 100 in the KenPom rankings.
Tipoff between the Trojans and the Hogs is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday from Bud Walton Arena. The game will be broadcast on SECN+.
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Rex Nelson
Rex Nelson has been senior editor and columnist at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2017, and he has a biweekly podcast called “Southern Fried.”
After graduating from Ouachita Baptist University in 1981, he was a sportswriter for the Arkansas Democrat for a year before becoming editor of Arkadelphia’s Daily Siftings Herald. He was the youngest editor of a daily in Arkansas at age 23. Rex was then news and sports director at KVRC-KDEL from 1983-1985.
He returned to the Democrat as assistant sports editor in 1985. From 1986-1989, he was its Washington correspondent. He left to be Jackson T. Stephens’ consultant.
Rex became the Democrat-Gazette’s first political editor in 1992, but left in 1996 to join then-Gov. Mike Huckabee’s office. He also served from 2005-09 in the administration of President George W. Bush.
From 2009-2018, he worked stints at the Communications Group, Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities, and Simmons First National Corp.
Dylan Sherman
Dylan Sherman is a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He is based in Northwest Arkansas and focuses on Tyson Foods Inc. and the transportation industry. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he has been with the newspaper since 2023.
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