Will these NBA-bound UK basketball players side with Calipari or the Cats? We asked them.

Surprised that John Calipari left Kentucky after 15 years for a new beginning at Arkansas?

You’re not alone.

Even the NBA-bound players on the Hall of Famer’s final UK basketball team were taken aback when they heard the news that the 65-year-old head coach would be starting anew in Fayetteville next season.

“Oh yeah, I definitely was,” Antonio Reeves replied when asked if Coach Cal’s departure caught him off guard. “I wasn’t expecting it. I don’t know what happened. He only knows. He never told us what was going on.”

Rob Dillingham said the same. He hasn’t heard an explanation either.

“But I just look at it as like, ‘That’s his decision, and sometimes stuff happens how it happens.’ And you never know what’s really going on on the inside,” he said.

A look of genuine shock hit Justin Edwards’ face when Calipari’s exit came up in conversation.

“But everything happens for a reason,” he said. “So I hope Arkansas treats my guy good.”

Those three players — along with another former teammate, Kentucky native Reed Sheppard — spoke to the Herald-Leader from the NBA combine in Chicago last week. The bulk of those discussions revolved around their own time at UK and what awaited them in next month’s NBA draft, but Calipari’s situation was a hot topic, too.

There’s been a debate for a while now over how players like Dillingham, Edwards and Reeves would view the University of Kentucky whenever Calipari left the school.

For the past several years, it’s been assumed that he would end his coaching career in Lexington, but — even under that scenario — so many of his best players at UK were here for only one season, and they’ve been viewed (by some) as Calipari players as much — or even more — as Kentucky players.

Whenever Coach Cal left town, would guys like that come back?

The question is even more apt now that Calipari actually departed Kentucky not only for another college basketball team, but for one inside the Wildcats’ own conference. Arkansas, ever since joining the SEC in the early 1990s, has been one of Kentucky’s most consistent competitors.

The Razorbacks are bound to be a thorn in UK’s side for as long as Calipari is there, and this particular transition complicates an already unique situation for his former players.

It didn’t take long for the rhetoric to start flying.

DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall — the two faces of Calipari’s first season at UK and the poster players for the one-and-done philosophy that extended throughout his time in Lexington — struck different notes in the immediate aftermath of his surprising move.

Cousins caused some consternation among UK fans with his comments on the “Bully Ball” podcast that “it’ll never be the same” at Kentucky following Calipari’s departure.

“Arkansas will now be the hot spot,” said Cousins, one of the most beloved players of the Calipari era.

Wall, meanwhile, supported Calipari’s decision but praised UK at the same time.

“I’m still a part of Kentucky, I’m still going to be Big Blue Nation,” Wall said on his podcast. “That’s the school that gave me the opportunity to play on the highest level of college basketball. … That’s always family to me.”

What about Calipari’s last batch of NBA draft picks?

Kentucky or Calipari?

Sheppard, obviously, has his own pre-existing Kentucky ties. The son of two former UK basketball stars and the state’s Mr. Basketball last year before his surprising ascent to superstardom in year one as a Wildcat, he’ll always bleed blue. His father, Jeff Sheppard, was also college roommates with new UK coach Mark Pope, and the projected top-10 pick in this year’s NBA draft said he’d already had multiple discussions with Pope and can’t wait to see what’s next for the program.

Still, he reserved special praise for Calipari.

“To me, he’s the best coach in the world,” Sheppard said.

Dillingham, Edwards and Reeves don’t have those deep-rooted Kentucky ties. They’re from North Carolina, Philadelphia and Chicago, respectively, and — like many of Calipari’s best players — Dillingham and Edwards spent less than a year in Lexington, while Reeves was a Wildcat for just two seasons.

Asked if he’d show up at any UK or Arkansas games in the near future, Dillingham hesitated.

“I’ll go to the game where they play each other. That would be even, right?” he said with a laugh.

The Cats and the Hogs will play just once next season: in Rupp Arena, with no date yet set.

“I’ll come back, for sure, to Kentucky,” Dillingham continued. “Because, obviously, they protected me. And it wasn’t just (Calipari). It was the fans. It was the teachers. Everybody there. I love Mitch Barnhart, the athletics director. I love all of them. So I really liked the UK experience, because they helped me as a whole, and they treated me like family.”

Reeves will go down as the final UK scholarship player in the Calipari era to graduate from the school. He earned his degree — a Bachelor of Science in communications — earlier this month.

He said he would continue to support Calipari, but he remains a Wildcat.

“I’d say both. I played for him. So, of course, I’m gonna cheer for him at Arkansas. Why not?” Reeves said. “And the fans at Kentucky — I definitely can’t leave them behind. So I definitely gotta go back and just show them love whenever I get a chance. And I came from Kentucky. So I can’t just leave that behind.”

It should be no surprise that Calipari’s former players will have split loyalties, especially those that he helped shepherd to the NBA, where his ex-Cats have earned billions of dollars in contracts, some of them now among the biggest names in the game. This year, seven of the 24 selections for the NBA All-Star Game were former UK players, smashing the previous record. All seven of those Wildcats played college basketball during the Calipari era.

So, don’t be surprised if guys like Wall, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Davis, Tyrese Maxey and Karl-Anthony Towns continue to show up in Lexington from time to time. But don’t be upset if they show their faces in Bud Walton Arena once or twice either.

“I love Coach Cal. I appreciate him for the opportunity,” Dillingham said. “And you see him — he’s put so many players in the NBA. He’s done a great thing at Kentucky.”

Edwards also said he would support both Calipari and the Cats, but he had his own unique perspective on the situation.

A little while before he spoke to the Herald-Leader in Chicago last week, he looked up and saw a friendly face.

“I talked to Mark Pope. He was here today,” Edwards said, “I dapped him up. He told me if I was ever in town and needed a gym that I was always welcome to use the Craft Center. And Coach Cal told us the same: any alum or players that he had (at Kentucky), if they want to come work out, they can always use the gym.”

To hear that from both coaches meant a lot.

“Those guys are two genuine guys,” Edwards said. “And you can tell that they’re caring people.”

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Reed Sheppard reflects on his decision to leave Kentucky. ‘It’s not what I was expecting.’

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