Brad Calipari
Assistant Coach / Dir. of On-Court Player Development
Kentucky ‘19
1st Year at Arkansas
Brad Calipari joined the Arkansas staff for the 2024-25 season and serves as assistant coach/director of on-court player development.
He came to Fayetteville after two seasons working in player development at Vanderbilt and Long Island.
Calipari was the director of on-court player development at Vanderbilt for the 2023-24 campaign. He helped Erza Manjon and Tyrin Lawrence rank among the top scorers in the SEC while Ven-Allen Lubin was one of the most improved players in the league.
In 2022-23, Calipari was the director of player development for Long Island University in Brooklyn. At LIU, Calipari worked alongside head coach Rod Strickland – an NBA veteran who made the transition to collegiate coaching.
Prior to his time in Brooklyn, Calipari was a graduate assistant for the Kentucky men’s basketball program, earning his master’s certificate in sports kinesiology in 2022.
As a student-athlete, Calipari began his career at Kentucky, suiting up for the Wildcats for his first three seasons (2016-19) on teams that made two Elite 8’s and a Sweet 16. He played the final two seasons of his collegiate career at Detroit Mercy for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons.
Calipari graduated from Kentucky in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in communications and media studies before earning a master’s degree in liberal arts from Detroit Mercy in 2021.
CALIPARI FILE
Born: Nov. 11, 1996, in Franklin Lakes, N.J.
Hometown: Franklin Lakes, N.J. (MacDuffie (Mass.) School)
Collegiate Playing Career: Kentucky (2016-19); Detroit Mercy (2019-21)
Alma Mater: Kentucky ‘19 (Communications and Media Studies)
COACHING CAREER
2021-22 Kentucky (Graduate Assistant)
2022–23 Long Island University (Director of Player Development)
2023–24 Vanderbilt (Director of On-Court Player Development)
2024–pres. Arkansas (Assistant Coach/Director of On-Court Player Development)
