John Calipari ejected from SEC opener vs. Mississippi State for arguing with referees
John Calipari was ejected from Kentucky’s league opener against Mississippi State on Saturday after getting back-to-back technical fouls in the second half.
Calipari appeared to be arguing that Mississippi State’s Iverson Molinar should have been called for a carry before making a jump shot. The officials hit him with a technical foul, and — while MSU’s Jalen Johnson was shooting the ensuing free throws — called a second technical foul as Calipari continued to argue while UK assistant coach Jai Lucas tried to usher him back to the bench area.
The UK coach left the court with Kentucky trailing 53-46 and 9:04 still left in the game. Less than 4 minutes later, UK took a 56-55 lead on a Dontaie Allen three-pointer. The Cats scored 10 straight points following the Mississippi State free throws that came as a result of the Calipari technical fouls.
Kentucky ended up winning the game 78-73 in double overtime. Allen made seven three-pointers and scored a game-high 23 points for the Wildcats.
UK assistant coach Bruiser Flint appeared to lead the huddle in the next timeout and was the Wildcats’ most visibly active coach on the sidelines for the rest of the game. Flint, in his first year as an assistant at UK, was previously an assistant coach at Indiana and spent 14 seasons as Drexel’s head coach before that. He was also a former assistant under Calipari at UMass and followed Calipari as that program’s head coach in 1996.
Kentucky is off to a 1-6 start to the season with six consecutive losses following an opening victory over Morehead State. The game at Mississippi State on Saturday was UK’s first in Southeastern Conference play.
This story was originally published January 2, 2021 at 7:42 PM.
