When John Calipari left his longtime coaching gig at Kentucky in favor of their SEC rival, the Arkansas Razorbacks, there were bound to be some hard feelings on both sides.
Those hard feelings were only highlighted even further in a bit of a weird interaction on social media between Arkansas social media manager Rachael Harris and popular college football account @RedditCFB.
RedditCFB took to social media to post a screenshot of a supposed post on X from the Arkansas Men’s Basketball team account.
The post showed three former Kentucky players currently on Team USA for the upcoming Olympic Games, including Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker, and Anthony Davis, with the caption “Going for GOLD” @TeamUSA @usabasketball @CoachCalArk”.
https://twitter.com/RedditCFB/status/1810393809043472465
This obviously would have been a very weird post for the Arkansas Men’s Basketball team account to post, because none of these players have any affiliation with the University of Arkansas whatsoever.
It turns out, the screenshot was entirely fake. Rachael Harris, who runs the Arkansas Men’s Basketball social media account on X, replied to the post from RedditCFB, saying that this was never posted.
“Hi. I run this account,” wrote Harris on X. “This was never posted. Thanks for your time.”
https://twitter.com/racaldwe/status/1810412895010005420
This sparked a number of Kentucky fans flooding into Harris’s reply to the fake screenshot, showing instances where Harris did indeed highlight Calipari’s success in the past as if it were accomplished at Arkansas (which may have led to the @RedditCFB post here in an attempt to riff on that):
But you did list all of Coach Cal’s draft picks from Memphis and Kentucky on draft night, and Pardon My Take made fun of you for it. That actually did happen.
— ok (@okaywhatno) July 8, 2024
Ah! I've been looking for who runs that account!
Can you block me on your main too?
— The Kentucky Logo (@TheKentuckyLogo) July 8, 2024
One Harris post in particular appears to be at the center of the controversy here. That post attempted to highlight all of the NBA talent that Calipari has produced as a collegiate head coach, none of which came from Arkansas of course.
https://twitter.com/RazorbackMBB/status/1806121366896464154
On one hand, it makes sense that Harris was attempting to highlight Calipari’s proven track record of producing NBA talent. But it does feel a bit weird considering Kentucky’s brand, which albeit Calipari helped build, also played a significant factor in bringing in these big-name talents to the program over the years.
Regardless, there is obviously no love lost when it comes to these two SEC programs. So it should be fun to see these two programs square off this coming college basketball season.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.