John Calipari becomes first coach to win SEC Tournament title at 2 different schools
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John Calipari’s Hall of Fame résumé doesn’t necessarily need any more bullet points to be added, but it isn’t stopping the current Arkansas coach from making more history.
With the Razorbacks having taken down Vanderbilt by a score of 86-75 in Sunday’s SEC Tournament Championship Game, Calipari secured his first crowning achievement in 2 years at the helm in Fayetteville.
And the result also meant that Calipari has now won SEC Tournament titles at 2 different schools, making him the first coach to ever accomplish such a feat.
While notably leading Kentucky from 2009-2024, Calipari won the league’s tournament championship in 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, a dominant stretch in which UK largely controlled the conference.
And in addition, Calipari also claims a plethora of tournament crowns from his other stints as a coach. He won 5 straight A-10 titles while with UMass in the 1990s and secured another 4 with Memphis in the late 2000s.
It remains to be seen if the 2015 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee will be able to claim as many SEC tournament titles with Arkansas as he did while with Kentucky. Similarly to how his tenure in Lexington began, Calipari has won the league’s tourney during his second season in charge.
Parker is currently the sports editor for the Enterprise-Journal in McComb, Mississippi. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
