John Calipari wants more from Rupp fans. ‘Don’t just stand there and try to analyze.’

Fresh off the road and two raucous, hostile environments, the Kentucky Wildcats will return to the friendly confines of Rupp Arena for a two-game homestand starting Wednesday night.

John Calipari wants to see the same kind of atmosphere in those matchups with Florida and Tennessee as UK’s players encountered in South Carolina and Arkansas last week.

Calipari has gone this route a few times in recent seasons.

He often voices his appreciation for Kentucky’s fans while making clear he wants to hear more from them on game days. When Rupp Arena reaches its roaring apex, it can be as loud as any place in college basketball, but — particularly over the past few seasons — that noise level has been lacking, especially when the Cats are playing against a team deemed to be a lesser opponent.

Calipari has lamented the UK game-day experience — even meeting with student groups over the past couple of years to try and come up with ways to get folks more energized — and he’s attempted to rally the Rupp faithful more directly in recent days. On three separate occasions over the past couple of weeks, Calipari has called for Kentucky fans to get loud.

Following UK’s 90-77 home win over Mississippi State on Jan. 17, he started up, mentioning a Major League Baseball game he attended last fall and asking for the same atmosphere in the Cats’ next game against Georgia.

“This Georgia game, I want it to sound — when I went to the Philadelphia Phillies playoff game, folks, I got chills,” he said. “It was so loud and people were so engaged. I want that Georgia game to feel that way. That’s our fans having a 10-point edge, being those people. And today they were really good. But I would say that doing that shows how the fans are here.”

Calipari often reminds people this time of year how fans are when Kentucky hits the road. “Everybody’s Super Bowl” is his go-to phrase to explain what it’s like for the Wildcats to walk into another program’s arena. There have already been plenty of examples this season.

In UK’s SEC opener at Florida on Jan. 6, the Rowdy Reptiles were out in force. The next weekend, the students in Reed Arena were so raucous during Reed Sheppard’s free throws at the end of regulation that the bleachers were shaking. The Texas A&M fans kept up the intensity through overtime, their Aggies coming away with a 97-92 victory.

Last week in Columbia, the young Wildcats witnessed their first court-storming, South Carolina’s fans at a fever pitch throughout a 79-62 beatdown of Kentucky. And four days later, even with Arkansas’ season going nowhere, Bud Walton Arena was packed, just a tiny amount of blue in the stands and red glow sticks illuminating the darkened building during pregame introductions.

“It’s a fun place. Very loud,” Antonio Reeves said after UK’s hard-fought 63-57 win.

Rupp Arena, by comparison, often doesn’t match that energy level. There have even been noticeable blocks of empty seats in recent seasons, once unthinkable around these parts.

To the UK fans’ credit, they have restored some of that Rupp rowdiness this season, completely buying into a fun, electric team that — until last week — has put up points by the bunches.

After Kentucky’s 105-96 win over Georgia last weekend — a night highlighted by the long-anticipated debut of Zvonimir Ivisic — Calipari expressed his appreciation once again.

“Our fans — how about our fans in this building today?” he said. “Look, here’s what I would tell our fans. I love our fans. Everywhere we go, that’s what the building is like. The building we play on the road is just like that. It may not be as big. And I’m saying when we play, just come and bring it, like you did today. It was ridiculous.”

The only game so far this season that has come close to matching the magic that poured out of the crowd during the win over Georgia was Kentucky’s 95-73 dismantling of then-No. 8 Miami on Nov. 28, a night that saw the Rupp fans in rare form.

“It brings us energy as a team,” Reeves said after that win. “We can hear them erupting, and it just gives us energy down there.”

Sheppard, who grew up attending games in the arena, said he hadn’t heard Rupp get like that in a “long time” and called the general vibe around the Miami game a “moment that we’ll never forget” as a team.

“It was so loud,” Sheppard said that night. “From the first possession to the last possession, they made a huge impact on the game. I think they made it tough for Miami to run stuff. It was unbelievable, really.”

Calipari acknowledged that the debut of “Big Z” brought its own special energy, but he wants to see and hear the same thing moving forward. He was beating the drum again on his weekly radio show last Wednesday night, the day after his Wildcats walked off the South Carolina court as Gamecocks fans were storming onto it.

“These dudes were playing for their lives. And the arena was packed,” he said of Colonial Life Arena the night before. “And let me say this: that’s why — what you all did for us against Georgia, where the fans were crazy. Bedlam. You could say, ‘Well, Z made some shots.’ Well, it was that before he got in. And then he made some shots, and then it was over the top. It was like people standing, literally like the Philadelphia Phillie playoff game. It was like, incredible.”

He said they’d get the same scene at Arkansas three days later. They did. And now he wants it again at Rupp Arena, first against Florida on Wednesday night and again when Tennessee brings its top-five team to town Saturday night.

Games at Rupp often seem like more a study of basketball than the boisterous, party-like atmosphere that the Cats encounter elsewhere. That was the case long before Calipari came to town, the home fans watching with more of a critical eye than most other places in the sport.

With seven home games left this season, Calipari wants Kentucky fans to cast aside that thinking and throw caution to the wind.

“Have fun. Enjoy it. Don’t just stand there and try to analyze and criticize. Just have a ball at the game. And then after, go watch the tape and figure out what you think … happened in the game.”

Next game

Florida at No. 10 Kentucky

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

TV: ESPN

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Florida 14-6 (4-3 SEC), Kentucky 15-4 (5-2 SEC)

Series: Kentucky leads 110-41

Last meeting: Kentucky won 87-85 on Jan. 6, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla.

Kentucky eked out an SEC road win, but should the Cats now be worried about their offense?

John Calipari’s star of the Kentucky-Arkansas game? He might be ready for a bigger role.

The win at Arkansas was a step forward for Kentucky’s defense and its potential ceiling

Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s win over the Arkansas Razorbacks

John Calipari shakes up Kentucky starting lineup. Justin Edwards will come off the bench.

Star freshman guard didn’t play for Kentucky basketball in SEC road game at Arkansas

Adou Thiero returned from injury, and gave Kentucky basketball a needed physical presence

Why a former Kentucky basketball standout decided to make a $1 million donation to UK

First Scouting Report: Kentucky goes for a season sweep of Florida