Nate Oats, Bruce Pearl rumored in Kentucky head coach replacement search

In a seismic move that will send waves throughout the college basketball landscape, Kentucky men’s head basketball coach John Calipari, who led the Wildcats since 2009, will be leaving for the same position at Arkansas. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports the deal will be finalized within “the next 24 hours.”

Sources: John Calipari is finalizing a five-year deal to become the next coach at Arkansas. The deal is expected to be completed in the next 24 hours.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) April 8, 2024

Calipari is one of the sport’s all-time winningest coaches, boasting 855 career victories with three different programs. He led the Wildcats to a national championship in 2012 and reached the Final Four in 2011, 2014, and 2015. During his administration, UK produced a record-setting amount of NBA talent, including current All-Stars Devin Booker, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Davis, and Karl-Anthony Towns.

However, Kentucky has failed to replicate that success in recent years. Since 2020, the Wildcats haven’t advanced to the Sweet Sixteen and have suffered several embarrassing first-round exits, losing to 15th-seeded St. Peter’s in 2022 before being upset by 14th-seeded Oakland just two weeks ago.

As the news of Calipari’s departure broke, national college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman reported that the legendary coach had become “absolutely miserable” in Lexington.

https://twitter.com/TheFieldOf68/status/1777178104685105534

Calipari, who signed to a lifetime contract at Kentucky in 2019, was owed $32 million in the case of his potential firing. With his voluntary departure from the school, the Wildcats will owe him no money.

Per John Fanta of FOX Sports, Calipari’s deal at Arkansas will last for five seasons and will pay him $8 million per year, a slight step down from his UK annual base salary of $8.5 million. However, the Razorbacks’ future NIL commitment is rumored to be “massive.”

https://twitter.com/John_Fanta/status/1777189234845368571

Calipari was reportedly swayed by substantial financial commitment from the Tyson family, the Arkansas boosters and billionaire owners of Tyson Foods. He has close ties to the Tysons and has referred to patriarch John as a “longtime friend.”

https://twitter.com/MattNorlander/status/1777164452145865169

Arkansas’ coaching search began last week when Eric Musselman was hired away from Fayetteville by USC. The Razorbacks originally targeted Chris Beard of Ole Miss and Jerome Tang of Kansas State, but couldn’t come to terms with either. Rumors of their interest in Calipari first started to circulate on Saturday and picked up steam throughout Sunday afternoon.

Wess Moore, a TV anchor in Little Rock, was one of the first to definitively report Calipari’s involvement with Arkansas. National outlets began to pick up the news as the night went on, including CBS Sports, ESPN, and The Athletic.

Goodman named Alabama’s Nate Oats and Auburn’s Bruce Pearl “names to watch” for the vacant Kentucky job, along with Baylor coach Scott Drew.

https://twitter.com/GoodmanHoops/status/1777187133390037466

This is not the first time Oats’ name has been thrown around in a coaching search this offseason. Rumored to be a Michigan target last month, Oats recently signed an extension with the Crimson Tide that increased his buyout from $10 million to $18 million; if Kentucky were to attempt to hire him away from Alabama, they’d have to pay an exorbitant price tag. Oats is by far the most costly candidate the Wildcats could pursue.

Bruce Pearl has been linked to other jobs before, including Louisville, another wealthy program in the state of Kentucky — however, many analysts agree that Pearl entertained UL as a means to secure himself a contract extension and a raise at Auburn. According to The Athletic, Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart is also not interested in hiring a coach that has served a three-year NCAA show-cause penalty, which Pearl did from 2011-2014.

Neither Oats nor Pearl has explicitly been linked to the UK search yet, and it’s not clear whether either want to leave their current jobs, despite Kentucky’s vast resources.

Charles Vaughan is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News.