With each game Arkansas plays, the fans’ hope for a comeback fades a little more. Every time they believed there was a chance to relive the Razorbacks’ past glory, disappointment followed. Now, with John Calipari enduring a winless start to the new year, both fans and analysts are reevaluating his performance as head coach.

While speaking on ‘The Field of 68 After Dark’ podcast, analyst Jeff Goodman shared a comment from another prominent national coach about Calipari. Goodman relayed, “[He] said, ‘I don’t think Calipari can adapt at all. When everything is equal talent-wise, he just can’t do it. He can do it when he has way more talent than you.”

The unnamed coach, who recently faced off against the Razorbacks, implied that John Calipari struggles when working with a team lacking extreme talent, according to Goodman. The rival coach criticized Calipari’s inability to develop his roster’s skills to secure wins. Interestingly, the Razorbacks’ recent victories have come against teams that have struggled to win games this season, further fueling doubts about their ability to compete at a high level.

Rob Dauster also chimed in, emphasizing that Coach Cal’s past success was closely tied to the elite rosters he had at Kentucky, something that may be lacking in recent years. Dauster pointed out that Calipari’s ability to win SEC championships was largely due to having extraordinary talent on his team. “That was always the skill that he had, what made him great at Kentucky… He had Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, the top two picks,” Dauster noted.

At the same time, some might argue that the current roster of Arkansas has enough potential to work with. They entered this season with the No. 4 recruiting class in the nation and the No. 1 transfer class. Fans were quite optimistic when top-class recruits like Kartner Knox and Boogie Fland joined the team. In fact, some of the young talents previously chose Kentucky but switched to Arkansas after Calipari’s departure. However, the updated roster of this season is yet to bear fruit and it’s soon going to be too late for a comeback.

It looks like there is no end to Calipari’s troubles this season. The latest of which has come after his key player has been suffering with an injury that has been affecting his recent games. Let’s take a closer look at Calipari’s latest of problems.

Arkansas guard’s injured hand adds to Calipari’s troubles

Boogie Fland has been doing his best to keep the struggling Razorbacks afloat. However, there is only so much one guy can do in the cut-throat arena of SEC powerhouses. In the disappointing loss against Florida, Fland suffered a hand injury that’s probably keeping him from performing at his highest level.

“His hand is pretty bad,” Calipari said. “Don’t know what we’ll do going forward, but we’ve got to make sure that we get that thing right. We’ve got nine guys and if Boogie is out for a while we may have eight guys.” Fland made the least amount of points in the entire season in the recent game against the Missouri Tigers. He currently stands as the team’s primary ball handler and without him, the way ahead can be even more challenging.

Meanwhile, the question remains: Does Calipari have what it takes to compete against the SEC powerhouses? Kentucky’s next opportunity to prove themselves as a legitimate SEC contender will come when they host the Georgia Bulldogs this week.