FAYETTEVILLE -- John Calipari poked some fun at himself -- his upper body physique specifically -- when he met with media members for the first time as the University of Arkansas men's basketball coach Wednesday night at Walton Arena.
Calipari, asked about the red Razorbacks pullover he was wearing after blue being his primary color of choice the past 15 years as Kentucky's coach, told the story of making a wardrobe change during the plane ride from Lexington, Ky., to Fayetteville earlier in the day.
Calipari and his wife, Ellen, and son, Brad, were on the plane along with Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek and his wife, Jennifer.
"I went on the plane and I had a dark blue thing on, and I was in the back by myself because I was trying to get ready for [Wednesday's news conference]," said Calipari, who is 65. "Hunter's wife and my wife, they're in the middle and I took my [blue] thing off, and I was putting [the red pullover] on.
"Somebody peeked their head in the back. I said, 'I am not Eric Musselman. You do not want to look back here,' " Calipari added, drawing laughter. "I said, 'And if you did look back here, you're going to turn the plane around and go back to Lexington, and say, 'Drop him off.' "
Musselman, Arkansas' coach the previous five seasons who took the Southern Cal job last week, was known for taking off his shirt in celebration after big victories.
The two times Musselman, now 59, removed his shirt as the Razorbacks' coach were when they beat No. 1 Auburn 80-76 in overtime at Walton Arena in 2022 -- even though his left arm was in a sling as he recovered from shoulder surgery for a torn rotator cuff -- and when they beat defending national champion and No. 1 seed Kansas 72-71 in a second-round NCAA Tournament game in 2023 at Des Moines, Iowa.
Musselman began the tradition of taking off his shirt after big victories when he was coach at Nevada during the four seasons before he came to Arkansas.
"It happened at Nevada," Musselman, a workout fanatic, said last year before the Razorbacks played Connecticut at Las Vegas in the NCAA Tournament. "I don't know how or why."
Musselman said he hadn't planned on taking off his shirt after the Kansas game, but that one of the team's hosts in Des Moines "was kind of begging me, even after the first game [when Arkansas beat Illinois].
"I guess my emotions got the best of me. My wife [Danyelle] is not always happy about that.
"But it's not something that we plan on doing all the time. It just kind of ... emotions run through you, and I guess you get to a certain age and you do it just because."
Musselman had a 111-59 record at Arkansas, including three NCAA Tournament appearances. The Razorbacks advanced to the Elite Eight in 2021 and 2022 and the Sweet 16 in 2023 before missing the NCAA Tournament this season with a 16-17 record.
Prior to 2021, Arkansas hadn't advanced as far as the Elite Eight since making back-to-back championship game appearances when the Razorbacks beat Duke in 1994 and finished runner-up to UCLA in 1995.
"Muss did a heck of a job here," Calipari said Wednesday night. "Two Elite Eights, the Sweet 16 again. He got this thing back on track."
Calipari said "the opportunity to follow all of that" helped make the Arkansas job more appealing after his run at Kentucky that included a 410-123 record and four trips to the Final Four, highlighted by winning the 2012 national championship.
"Kentucky's the bluest of the blue," Calipari said. "There's only a few schools like that. ... Arkansas is one of them. It is.
"But all I can tell you, we loved our time at Kentucky. We gave every ounce of everything we had to that job, that state and that school. So I walk away sad, but knowing no regrets.
"We left nothing on the table. There's not a whole lot more we could have tried to do."
After Calipari was announced as the Razorbacks' coach, Musselman expressed happiness for Arkansas, Yurachek and Calipari.
"Great hire by Hunter," Musselman said in a text message Wednesday to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "Coach Cal will do amazing things at Arkansas."
Musselman also talked about Calipari and his move to Arkansas during an appearance on Jim Rome's podcast Wednesday.
"Coach Calipari going to Fayetteville, that shows you what a great job the University of Arkansas is," Musselman said. "It's a great fit for Arkansas.
"I mean, the national publicity that Coach Calipari will generate, I don't know how you can put a figure on the value to the University that he'll create."
Musselman was an NBA assistant coach with the Memphis Grizzlies during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons for Mike Fratello when he first got to know Calipari, who was the University of Memphis coach at the time.
"Coach Fratello and Coach Cal had a lot of late-night dinners with large groups of people," Musselman said in 2019 after he was hired at Arkansas. "I went to a lot of those. They were colorful."
Musselman said when he took a break from coaching for three seasons from 2008-10, he attended clinics in Memphis that Calipari put on with Larry Brown, the only coach to win NCAA and NBA titles, doing so with Kansas (1988) and the Detroit Pistons (2004).
Calipari and Musselman also spent time together when they coached international teams in 2011 and 2012 at FIBA tournaments.
"I was coaching the Dominican Republic team, then [Calipari] ended up coaching it and I went and coached the Venezuelan team," Musselman said in 2019. "We got to be together a lot because in those competitions you stay in the same hotel, you eat in the same area.
"I think he's such an incredible X's and O's coach, and he's such an important part of college basketball because he's a colorful personality who's a great coach, but also somebody that does a great job of pulling the coaching community together."
When Calipari spoke at SEC media days in 2019, he told the story of visiting with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones -- a former Arkansas offensive lineman and major Razorbacks booster -- when Arkansas played a football game at Kentucky in 2018.
"I saw Jerry Jones in the box when Arkansas played up here, and I said, 'You guys have no idea what kind of basketball coach you just got. This guy is as good as it gets,' " Calipari said. "I'm so happy for Coach Muss to be at Arkansas."
Now Musselman is happy for Calipari to be at Arkansas.