Coming into the 2024-25 college basketball season, there was always expected to be plenty of animosity between the Kentucky Wildcats fanbase and former head coach John Calipari. But on Tuesday, Kentucky radio host Matt Jones outlined how Calipari’s departure, and early lack of success at Arkansas, has strained his relationship with ESPN’s Seth Greenberg.
Thus far, Arkansas has not stacked up to the competition in the Uber-competitive SEC, losing its first five games in conference play. As a result, Kentucky fans, including Matt Jones, have naturally relished in Calipari’s struggles thus far after surprising everyone and leaving Lexington after 15 years at the program.
Recently, Greenberg shared his opinion on Kentucky fans, telling them to “get lost” in their own team’s success and not concern themselves with what is happening with Calipari at Arkansas.
Jones discussed this on Tuesday’s edition of his Kentucky Sports Radio show, calling out Greenberg for telling Kentucky fans how they should feel about their former coach.
“Speaking of things I disagree with, what is with Seth Greenberg? What is his deal? Why do he and Jay Williams feel like they need to tell us how to think about Cal? You had Jay Williams say on Saturday something to the effect of ‘Yes Arkansas is struggling. Cal is behind. Part of it is because of how much BBN (Big Blue Nation) complains so much.’ Then, Seth Greenberg says something like ‘Kentucky fans should worry about their team.’ Shut up! How are you supposed to expect us to not have an opinion about the coach who was here and left us for a team in the conference? Seth, none of us are going to change our behavior based on you. You’re not one of us,” said Jones.
We are not in need of announcers telling BBN how to be “real” fans pic.twitter.com/gazNYLn8g1
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) January 21, 2025
Jones then told a story of an encounter with Greenberg two years that shows the animosity between Jones and Greenberg stems much further back than just after Calipari’s departure this past offseason. The story outlines how Greenberg, who Jones looked at as a friend, confronted him over some negative comments about Calipari.
“First of all, two years ago at the UK-Kansas game, Seth came up to me. And he and I had always had a good relationship. Had always been nice to each other. He’d been on the show. He’d hosted this show. He came up to me, they were here for GameDay and I went up to him ready to do the bro hug. He came up to me and was like ‘Why are you talking about Cal like this?’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes ‘Why are you talking about Cal like this? I thought you were on his side?’ And I was like, ‘I am on his side. We stink. We’ve not been as good. He’s behind on the offense.’ He was like ‘I can’t believe you would say all this.’
“We had been friends forever. He just completely dismissed me. He has texted me in the last year and a half some pretty nasty stuff. Pretty nasty stuff based on nothing other than the things I’ve said on the air about Cal. This is a dude who was my friend and you’re mad at me because I have a different opinion? Well here’s the thing Seth, I was right. Everything I said was correct. And yet now you wanna tell us worry about your team? We had to listen to people tell us that Kentucky basketball was going to go down because Cal was gone. Well guess what? We were right and they were wrong.”
Greenberg has admitted in the past that he has a 40-year long relationship with Calipari. So maybe Greenberg, who of course had an extensive coaching career prior to joining ESPN, is just sticking up for his fellow coach and friend here.
Either way, Jones certainly doesn’t appear to be backing down from his stance on Calipari. So don’t expect much of a resolution between the two moving forward.
