Get exclusive analysis and the day’s top stories from around the SEC delivered directly to your inbox with our SEC Unfiltered newsletter.

Kentucky basketball coaches leave. They don’t get fired. (Not that often, anyway.)

Interesting, isn’t it? UK undeniably is a premier job, but whether due to the strain of the job or opportunities elsewhere, coaches repeatedly bolt out the side exit.

Here’s what Tubby Smith told the Lexington Herald-Leader in 2007 after leaving Kentucky for Minnesota: “You always want to be wanted.”

I can envision John Calipari thinking something similar.

Big Blue Nation no longer wanted Calipari. UK had strapped itself to Calipari with a long-term contract, and he would have been due a $33 million buyout after UK’s first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Oakland. So, Kentucky retained Calipari, while Wildcats fans fumed.

Calipari gave fans what they wanted, though: a coaching search. He left what he called “a dream job” in favor of Arkansas, which itself is a really good job, albeit not a dream.

Calipari and his Wildcats were once the toast of college basketball. That ended several years ago.

Rick Pitino also left Kentucky. Unlike Calipari and Smith, he didn’t move down the college ladder. He spring-boarded to the Boston Celtics.

Years later, Pitino would admit that leaving Kentucky was the “biggest mistake I made in my life.” He compared Kentucky to Camelot.

Smith expressed a different view. He never offered a public regret about leaving. His career took him to Minnesota, Texas Tech, Memphis and High Point.

“There’s a shelf life everywhere,” Smith told the Herald-Leader in 2013 after getting fired from Minnesota and hired at Texas Tech. He added that he wanted to coach where he was “celebrated,” not “tolerated.”

Calipari expressed a similar view this week, saying Kentucky “needs to hear another voice.”

I don’t disagree. I’ve called this a rare win-win-win in the coaching carousel.

Kentucky, Arkansas and Calipari can take comfort in the outcome.

Will Calipari come to regret this, like Pitino? Or, like Smith, will he look back on this and believe that leaving Kentucky was the correct move?

That likely depends on the level of success Calipari experiences at Arkansas.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s SEC Columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.