No. 10 Arkansas, John Calipari stun No. 2 St. John's, Rick Pitino to make Sweet 16
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Someone had to figure out a way to win a game that often felt like it was more about surviving than it was about advancing.
So leave it to the coach and the team that everyone counted out only a few weeks ago.
Arkansas and John Calipari, the 10th-seeded underdogs that few, if anyone, pegged to advance to the second weekend of this NCAA Tournament, not only did the deed on Saturday in stunning second-seeded St. John's, but did so while beating the Johnnies at their own game.
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Arkansas, of all teams, ended the Johnnies national championship dreams in a 75-66 upset in the West region.
Calipari summed it up after putting on a headset for the postgame interview for the team radio broadcast.
'Unbelievable,' he said.
Rick Pitino's team spent the better part of four months out-toughing, out-playing and out-working nearly every opponent on their way to a Big East championship. It ended Saturday with its best players on the bench and disbelief on its face. If any team was going to survive a game with 90 missed shots and 44 fouls, it was going to be St. John's.
Until it wasn't.
On Saturday, RJ Luis, the Big East Player of the Year, struggled mightily through a 3-for-17 shooting performance. Kadary Richmond, the Johnnies' No. 2 option, fouled out with six minutes left in the game after playing only 16 minutes. And, as a team, the Johnnies shot only 28 percent from the field while going 2-for-22 on 3s and 22-for-31 from the foul line.
The Johnnies trailed by as many as 13 in the second half, relying on pressure defense, cobbled together lineups and auxiliary pieces. There wasn't enough.
Arkansas was too big, too long, and just as tough. That's what it takes to advance despite playing without a leading scorer. Adou Thiero missed his eighth straight game, leaving the Hogs to rely on Billy Richmond (16 points), Karter Knox (15 points), Johnell Davis (13 points) and a swarming defensive performance.
Richmond hit the biggest shot of the day, a pull-up jumper from about 15 feet with under three minutes to go and St. John's trailing by only two.
A year ago at this time, Calipari was being pilloried throughout parts of the college basketball landscape, ridiculed with great delight over a first-round loss to 14th-seeded Oakland. The upset was Kentucky's second loss to a double-digit seeded team in three seasons and marked the final undoing of the Hall of Famer's 14-year tenure in Lexington.
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The day before last year's national championship, word surfaced that Calipari was in negotiations with Arkansas, a bizarre development spurred by Tyson Foods CEO John Tyson, an Arkansas mega-donor and friend of Calipari.
One year later, Calipari and Arkansas are heading to the Sweet 16. The Hogs are returning after reaching the second weekend in 2021, '22 and '23 under former coach Eric Musselman, who bolted for USC last year. Calipari, meanwhile, will coach in the second weekend for the first time since his 2019 Cats reached the Elite Eight.
It was a ride to get there. Arkansas, with a roster mostly constructed of former Kentucky players, a few top-rated freshmen and one carryover, opened the year ranked No. 16 in the AP poll. An 11-2 start was followed by five straight losses in January and a difficult road through the stacked SEC. By mid-February the Hogs were 15-11 overall and 4-9 in the league.
They were not in the NCAA Tournament picture.
A 5-2 finish, playing through injuries to leading scorers Thiero and Boogie Fland, was enough to push Arkansas into the bracket, even avoiding a First Four trip to Dayton.
'This was one of those years that was so rewarding,' Calipari said earlier this week. 'I'm thinking about where we were — they threw us in the coffin, forgot the nails.'
The Hogs' two wins in Providence could very well end up being part of an unexpected legacy act. The 66-year-old Calipari began the trip here by saying he was 'back to the roots of being the underdog.' He ended it with wins over fellow Hall of Famers Bill Self, one of his closest friends, and Pitino, his longtime proxy of career success.
Now it's off to San Francisco and a chance to keep going. Arkansas will face the winner of third-seeded Texas Tech and 11th-seeded Drake.
(Photo of Arkansas and John Calipari: Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)
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