Though it’s been more than two decades since Ross Burns played under John Calipari on UMass’ 1996 “Refuse to Lose” Final Four team, the former walk-on still carries with him lots of lessons from his time with one of the giants of college basketball coaching.

Burns, a Greenfield native, has spent his post-playing career as a basketball trainer in New York City and has worked with hundreds of players in the high school, college and professional ranks. He’s trained hundreds for the NBA Draft as the director of Pro Hoops Inc., including Kentucky alums Jamal Murray, Tyler Herro, Malik Monk and Nick Richards.

“Cal is awesome. He’s always reachable, always wants to help,” Burns said. “I really appreciate having that relationship in my life, past college.”

After Calipari’s move to Arkansas this spring following 15 years in Lexington, Kentucky, that connection has remained strong.

This summer, Burns worked with Calipari’s newest top recruit — five-star point guard Boogie Fland, who was originally committed to Calipari’s Wildcats before following his new head coach when he took the Razorbacks job. Calipari and Fland’s debut season in Fayetteville, Arkansas, begins with a scrimmage against Kansas on Oct. 25.

“I’m really happy about that for both of them,” Burns said. “I think it’s going to be a great fit and I’m really happy they’re going to be together next year.”

Fland is from the Bronx and played at Archbishop Stepinac, a Catholic school in White Plains, New York that is consistently one of the top high school basketball programs in the country. He was ranked as the No. 2 combo guard in the nation in the class of 2024 by the 24/7 sports composite and is known for his prodigious long-range shooting and vision despite being a year young for his grade.

“To be that young and be that aware and cerebral, reads the game, to me is really valuable,” Burns said. “I see him as a guy that will be for sure an NBA player.”

Fland actually shared the backcourt at Stepinac with UMass basketball’s most recent commit – Danny Carbuccia, who committed to the Minutemen’s class of 2025 in September.

Burns began working with Fland last spring and the pair have been working together for over a year since. Before Fland went off to Arkansas this summer, he worked with Burns for four or five days a week, sometimes six, in gyms in New York City. Burns was immediately taken with Fland’s ability to connect with and read his teammates, as well as his openness to new concepts.

“He has such a humble, open approach to getting better,” Burns said. “Where I think some players get in and maybe they don’t want to embrace a weakness or try new things, they just want to work on what they’re good at. But he was always trying to get to the next thing, and I really respected that out of him.”

When Burns looks for a model for how to run his training sessions, he thinks back to his days under Calipari.

“That was his main thing, he loved the challenge of the game,” Burns said. “He would always come into every game prepared. That’s what I try to do in all my workouts, I try to come in prepared and bring a competitive energy into our workouts to make them as game-like as possible.”

Though Burns and Calipari are a generation removed from UMass’ magical run, the lessons from that era live on with the players of the new generation.