John Calipari in dismay after Tennessee "manhandled" Arkansas, compels team to do some soul-searching: "How did you only get beat by 25?"

Arkansas coach John Calipari was devastated by his team's lopsided 52-76 loss to the No. 1-ranked Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday. At Thompson–Boling Arena, the Razorbacks were thoroughly outmatched and outworked, losing the rebounding battle by a staggering 22 boards.

Calipari addressed the issue first thing in his postgame remarks:

"They’re the number one team in the country for a reason. And my disappointment wasn’t in coming to Tennessee and losing a game. It was they kind of manhandled us," he said.

"I can’t remember the last time I had a team get beat by 30 rebounds (22). And so we got to do some soul searching, because this league, what they play like everybody plays like. So we miss free throws, we miss threes and we get out-rebounded by 30, how did you only get beat by 25? It could have been 50."

John Calipari's men went into the matchup with an 11-2 record and a six-game winning streak. However, they had no answer for Tennessee's intensity on both ends of the floor. Besides blocks, the Volunteers dominated every major statistical category, including assists, steals and field goal percentage.

The 24-point margin of defeat was the largest suffered by Arkansas since Calipari took over the program this summer.

The game was competitive early on, but a 14-1 Tennessee run, during which the Razorbacks went scoreless for over six minutes, allowed the hosts to build a double-digit first-half lead that they never relinquished.

John Calipari's Arkansas fails to score 60 points for the first time

The last time a team coached by John Calipari failed to reach the 60-point mark was in Jan. 2023, when his Kentucky squad only scored 52 points in a loss to Alabama.

Rick Barnes' Tennessee (14-0) showed why they are the country’s top-ranked team, as they held Arkansas to only 52 points on 37.7% shooting. The Razorbacks also went a dismal 6-of-29 from the 3-point line.

"Two things. They did a great job with our free throw shooting. We missed all kind of free throws. Second thing is, we had a bunch of good threes, good looks, and you miss them," Calipari explained as he tried to make sense of the defeat.

"You can’t miss them all. We missed every one that gave us a chance to get back. I mean, and some of them badly."

The loss drops Arkansas to 11-3 overall and 0-1 in SEC play. Calipari mentioned that he will have individual meetings with his players on Monday as they try to bounce back from this defeat.