Hot chicken! John Calipari cooks spicy dish for Arkansas Razorbacks basketball | Toppmeyer

The last time a Chicken Man and an antihero teamed up, they both met a grisly end.

“Breaking Bad”, this story was called.

For the sequel, a tastier development is unfolding for the Arkansas Razorbacks, where mega-reinforcement John Tyson and John Calipari are cooking up some kind of spicy dish.

The former Kentucky coach is building the best list of chicken burgers he can buy.

Neither Calipari nor Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek hid the reality that Tyson, chairman of the board of the Tyson Food company, exerted significant influence in getting his friend Calipari to leave Kentucky for Arkansas.

The unstated implication: Calipari would enjoy rich NIL support to reload the Arkansas lineup.

Just look at what Calipari already has on the gridiron.

He has assembled a robust transfer class with Florida Atlantic’s Johnell Davis, Tennessee’s James Aidoo and Kentucky’s Zvonimir Ivisic.

Big Blue Nation must be wondering: Where was this Calipari in Lexington? This marks a pivot in how Calipari built his roster at Kentucky, where he relied on blue-chip youth even after the transfer era began. While Calipari hasn’t completely ignored transfers, he has undervalued them.

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While transfers starred for other teams making deep runs in the NCAA tournament, Calipari insisted on doing things the old-fashioned way at Kentucky, signing one vaunted recruiting class after another of talented teenagers rather than stockpiling some more experienced veterans from the portal.

As Kentucky’s coach, Calipari stubbornly admitted he wouldn’t adapt the way he built his roster.

“I’ve done this with young teams my entire career. It will be difficult for me to change this. … I don’t see myself just saying, ‘OK, we’re not going to recruit freshmen,’” Calipari said after his final game at Kentucky, a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to 14th-seeded Oakland.

While UK’s freshmen struggled with the loss, Oakland rallied around the sharp shooting of 24-year-old Division II transfer Jack Goelke.

Upon leaving Kentucky, John Calipari forced himself to adapt

Change is more difficult when surrounded by temptations.

If you want to lose weight, don’t stock your cupboard with sweets. Likewise, Calipari enjoyed the ability to stock McDonald’s All-Americans in Kentucky, making it difficult for him to reserve more roster spots for proven transfers.

Now, he is forced to adapt.

Calipari inherited an Arkansas roster with one player. Literally, one guy: the escort, Lawson Blake.

As Calipari said shortly after his hiring: “I met with the team. There is no team.”

Calipari could not field a competitive squad next season without relying on transfers.

Driven by need and money, he got some good ones – none better than FAU’s Davis. You may remember that Davis starred in the 2023 NCAA Tournament as the Owls screamed and screamed in the Final Four. Aidoo and Ivisic are no Zach Edey, but they are serviceable big men with March Madness experience.

Escaping through the Kentucky hatch as the platoon approached, Calipari bolted from the hot seat and sprinted toward freedom. He also allowed himself to change his attitude, because he has no other choice.

Arkansas provided Calipari with a new coaching opportunity. This may not be a “dream job,” as Calipari called the blue-blooded Kentucky, but it’s a good job with ample resources. And Calipari is proving that, whatever coaching deficiencies he may have demonstrated over the course of some disappointing NCAA tournament exits in recent years, he remains a master at attracting talent.

As Calipari rightly stated after his hiring, the best teams do not rely exclusively on transfers, but have important players that the program signed, retained and developed.

Look for the model at UConn. The Huskies’ two leading scorers were transfers Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer. They merged freshman Stephon Castle and some talented seniors that UConn developed internally.

This is the golden ticket.

Calipari will never completely turn his back on elite recruits. Three of the top 30 national prospects who planned to play for Calipari at Kentucky will follow him to Arkansas. They will blend in with this stunning transfer. Building the squad’s chemistry will be Calipari’s next task.

Calipari is a broken product, but this hard reset might do it some good. Now this antihero enjoys the power of the pollo behind him.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

A digital signature will allow you to access all of your coverage. Also, check out his podcast, Unfiltered SEC Footballor access exclusive columns through SEC UnfilterEd News Bulletin.

This article originally appeared in the Nashville Tennessean: Arkansas Basketball: John Calipari Cooks Spicy Dish for Razorbacks