John Calipari faces a defining battle with young Arkansas team

John Calipari talked last week after his Arkansas basketball team beat Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Calipari talked a lot about installing offenses and giving his team different ways to attack and approach the game. Calipari noted that if Arkansas can get into an unstructured, free-flowing game marked by chaos and disruption, he had the athletes who could get out in transition and throw the ball toward the basket for layups or dunks. It's clear that Arkansas would love to play a less structured game in which natural athleticism can take over. That's what this team can do well. That's what these players are very capable of achieving.

The Virginia Cavaliers showed that Calipari chaos will have to wait, or at the very least, be tempered. Virginia runs structured offense and is very sound on defense. Virginia likes halfcourt basketball and a more measured tempo. The Cavaliers slow things down whereas Arkansas wants to speed things up.

This is what John Calipari is up against right now. He faces a battle between wanting to encourage free-flowing play from his young players and, on the other hand, to teach structure. Young players don't want to view structure as something they have to abide by, as though they are being restrained by a seat belt or a harness. They want to be able to run the floor and jump for dunks, as Calipari talked about (and as we saw against Pine Bluff).

However, even though players might not embrace structure, they will have to understand how to play within it and, in the case of Virginia, against it. Virginia is Team Structure. Calipari has to go to the drawing board and explain why Virginia's structure generally works, and why it worked so well against Arkansas on Sunday.

This lack of structure was apparent at both ends of the floor, but it especially showed up on defense, where Arkansas' athleticism was short-circuited by Virginia's screens, cuts, and overall understanding of the geometry of a basketball court. Virginia used angles and positioning and the other hallmarks of a structured offense to make Arkansas look confused and slow. The athleticism doesn't matter if the reactions are slow. Virginia was reacting quickly and playing slowly. Arkansas was reacting slowly and not understanding how to play more fluidly.

This is where John Calipari has to be a masterful teacher and guide for these young players. The sooner the lessons can take root, the more Arkansas can win games in the mud and get its defense to play the right way.