Saying the scary part out loud about the Razorbacks’ Sweet 16 run

The nuptials between Hall of Fame coach John Calipari and Razorback Nation are now formally consummated, with Arkansas’ fourth trip to the Sweet 16 in the past five years. The honeymoon phase didn’t last long in Calipari’s first year as King of the Hill in Fayetteville, starting Southeastern Conference (SEC) play 0-5, but few can say The Don of college basketball failed to secure a return on investments and live up to promises…so far. 

Arkansas Razorbacks: The scariest team in the Sweet 16

Forced back into an underdog role by a long list of injuries and adversaries, Calipari’s Razorbacks are once again back in their rightful place among the nation’s elite. But who wants to say the quiet part out loud? College basketball’s blue-blooded establishment should be very afraid because Calipari's X-Men are harkening back to days of future past.

Embracing Cinderfella Role

Yes. Calipari’s No. 10-seeded crew are six-point underdogs going into Thursday's 9 p.m. central tip off against the No. 3-seeded Texas Tech Red Raiders in the West Regional semi-finals. They have overcome injuries and adversity to reach another Sweet 16, but then again, so has his successor at Kentucky’s Big Blue Nation – Mark Pope.

For that matter, so have others SEC rivals like Ole Miss’ Chris Beard, Tennessee’s Rick Barnes, Alabama’s Nate Oates, Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, and Florida’s Mike  White. Each are starving for a taste of what Calipari and Arkansas already have: multiple Finals Fours and the eternal honor of being crowned a national champion at their respective Universities.

They are all a part of a record contingent from one conference to make it into the second weekend of the NCAA’s “Big Dance.” The SEC faction is joined by other worthy contenders from other conferences like the Atlantic Coast Conference (Duke ), Big Ten (Michigan, Michigan State, Maryland, and Purdue), and the Big 12 (Houston, BYU, Arizona, and last but not least, Texas Tech).

To say nothing the Big East (Oh, never mind) — all vying for coveted spots on a dance floor that shrinks with every round and only intensifies the madness as the dance proceeds to an inevitable climax in next week's Final Four round in San Antonio, Texas.

Now, on the cusp of his golden years, Calipari has shown once again his Teflon coating’s no-stick veneer still hides a heart only the late great Jim Valvano might truly appreciate. Rescued by his friend Arkansas business tycoon John Tyson, after being blue-balled out of Kentucky for not advancing to the Sweet 16 since the tournament came back from a one-year COVID-induced hiatus in 2020, Calipari was given sanctuary back among college basketball’s flagship underdog program.

From atop The Hill, Calipari launched his insurgent campaign to retake college hoops from a blue-blooded aristocracy in the Name Image and Likeness (NIL) era — which continues to sweep the post-pandemic college sports landscape. With Tyson’s financing, Calipari convinced a trio of his Kentucky blue chippers in point guard D.J. Wagner, blossoming forward Adou Thiero and 7-2 Croatian sensation Zvonimir “Big Z” Ivisic to all come onboard. He likewise got another trio of his most recent litter of prize freshmen colts in Boogie Fland, Billy Richmond and Karter Knox to follow suit.

Finally, Calipari completed his first Arkansas crew by going into the open free-agent portal market and hauled in the nation’s top overall rated player: Johnell Davis from Florida Atlantic, the nation’s top center: Jonas Aidoo from Tennessee and Arkansas’ lone retentainee from a year ago: Trevon Brazile – fresh off testing the NBA waters.

 Let’s dispense for now with all the ugly details of the injuries and adversity overcome to this point. They have been chronicled enough in the Arkansas press and beyond. As already mentioned, other teams can make similar claims, and now that we’re all embroiled in the Madness of March, no one wants to come across as making excuses.

Suffice it to say, Calipari’s crew fits their glass sneakers well enough to play the Cinderfellas role. After all, they are the lowest seeded team left on the dance floor; so we can forgive all the national prognosticators and NCAA selection committee members for their underwhelming expectations on such a talented group of misfits.

Even before the season started, spinmeisters like Jeff Goodman were typically frank. Arkansas wasn’t ranked 15th because of a lack of talent. It was because few believed in Calipari’s coaching prowess anymore. The prevailing narrative was that Calipari always had a stable of thoroughbred stallions at Kentucky. That’s why he made it to no less than a Sweet 16 in nine of his first 10 years leading Big Blue Nation. 

But since the COVID shutdowns, Calipari’s inability to make it to the second week of Tournament action had Kentucky a different kind of blue. BBN being BBN, they felt they were entitled to better, and how dare Calipari fall short of their high-maintenance expectations. Going into Thursday’s matchup with the Red Raiders, little has changed for Calipari as real Razorbackers expect to see Arkansas advance to a third Elite Eight in those same five years.

The consensus to start the year was that Bill Self’s Kansas Jayhawks were odds on favorites to win the national championship – despite being hog-tied by Cal’s Razorbacks in a spirited pre-season exhibition. Before Calipari’s arrival, his predecessor at Arkansas, Eric Mussleman knocked off a Self-less No. 1 seed Jayhawk team in the second round of the 2023 Tournament. And just to show all observers it was no fluke, Calipari’s Razorbacks showed Self and his Jayhawks to the tournament exit door to start this year’s ball.

Another contemporary rival of Calipari, Rick Pitino – now in his second year of rebuilding the long dormant St. John’s program in New York – ascended the Big East standings and took the East Coast media establishment by storm. They came into the Big Dance as a chic pick to crash this year’s Final Four, but Calipari’s crew took their meal ticket and crashes this week’s Sweet 16 instead.

No one should think Cal's Hogs aren't hungry for more tournament wins now that they've had a taste, but even after passing the two toughest exams to reach the Sweet 16, Arkansas is still considered the least among these.

Jimmy’s and Joes

In keeping with post COVID trends, the experts remained baffled. What they fail to comprehend is Calipari’s coaching superpowers always boiled down to the old adage: It’s not about the X’s and O’s. It’s about the Jimmy’s and Joes.

Working with the budget given to him by Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek and Tyson, Calipari proceeded to put together his Frankenstein's monster. Yeah, some the pieces may have been missing, or a bit broken, but just when everyone thought it was safe to venture out, the monster Richardson created back in the 90's is back at our door and looking for love.

Brazile and Aidoo transformed from pumpkins to into double up ATM's just in time for the postseason run. Only referee whistles have been able to slow them down of late. Big Z has had his moments this season, but we haven’t seen all three Razorback big men hitched at once to Cal’s coach yet. 

Young mavericks Fland, Knox and Richmond have all gotten chances to strut their stuff — and delivered more often than not. If the most recent showing against St. John’s is an indication of things to come, Red Raider sharp shooters like Chance McMillan may end up back on the bench like Big East POY R.J. Luis Jr. did.

Wagner has shown his pedigree in Fland’s absence, but has he lived up to the kind of floor general billing he was touted with coming out of high schooln — or even at times last year at Kentucky?

Which brings us finally to Davis. Nelly came to Arkansas with Final Four credentials already in hand after leading a true Cinderella run at FAU. He averaged 18 points, shot better than 40 percent from three and was a bonafide bucket on all three levels — and we’re not talking about the kind buckets Cinderella uses in garbage time. We’re talking about clutch. 

Sure. We’ve seen him step up in clutch moments all this season, but there’s one more shinning moment waiting on him to steal the many errant passes he's so deftly known to take. 

And let us not forget, the singular will of Thiero. He sacrificed his body to get the Razorbacks to this point, so no one should be surprised to see him show up now. It’s not like we need him to show out necessarily in his first game back, but Arkansas’ bigs could use the scrappiest  under'hog' to battle for loose balls and bones in the trenches with Texas Tech’s big dogs led by JT Toppin, Darrion Williams and seven-foot Frederiko Frederiko.

The Underhog Role

Some of Calipari’s detractors continue to overlook the reality there all along; he’s once again assembled one of – if not THE – most talented roster in the country. All the injuries and adversity they’ve endured here at Arkansas only served to shake them out of blue-kool-aid-induced complacency and get Calipari back to the underdog mindset he started his career with in his days as a Minuteman.

Despite what the latest trend-following spinmeisters will tell you, Arkansas is more talented than Kansas, St. John’s or Texas Tech. Do those teams have the equivalent of a top-ranked transfer portal class, a No. 2 ranked freshman class and blue chippers like the former No. 1 overall player coming out of high school, a 7-2 unicorn and a legacy product that blossomed into the best player on the team?

Arkansas’ main problem all year was putting their egos aside and learning to win as a team. That includes Calipari of course. Even with only nine viable options in the playing rotation, physical health wasn’t as much of the problem as learning how (as Calipari recently diagnosed) to play with one heartbeat. 

In Thiero’s late-season absence, that all came together coming into March Madness and guess who was recently announced to rejoin the team for Thursday’s festivities?

Sure. Texas Tech is worthy of being a No. 3 seed and Grant McCasland's record of winning, which includes an NIT and Junior College title deserves respect. The Red Raiders should be favored over Arkansas based on how they’ve played over the course of the season. But anyone telling you they are more talented than Arkansas hasn’t been paying attention.

The Goodfellas

Then there are those like Goodman who will still admit with a straight face, they expect Calipari’s Razorbacks to fall to McCasland's superior stratagem. Of course, they said the same thing about Bill Self and Rick Pitino, and look where they are now.

As for all those out there now throwing laurels at Calipari’s feet, they shouldn’t assume the Don has gotten this far without remembering the first rule of being a godfather. "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."

Calipari’s take away from Kentucky should be that the tendency to want to rest on your laurels when everyone is giving you your flowers is a trap. The fact that Goodman and friends are lining his path to the Sweet 16 with reluctant praise should give him pause. Afterall, they will rightly point out, BBN’s new Pope has accomplished everything Calipari has to this point with less money, less talent, less time and similar adversity.

There is always something still to prove at Arkansas. Just ask Richardson. Anyone saying Calipari and Arkansas should be "happy to be here” and “have already won ‘their Super Bowl’” by beating a St. John’s program that hadn’t sniffed a Sweet 16 since the turn of the millennium can be excused — IF they weren’t born the last time Arkansas eliminated the Johnny come latelies. Those who are older, should know better. 

Putting it All Together

That something still to prove right now is that this team has yet to put it ALL together and live up to their true potential. That’s something we haven’t seen so far. The closest we’ve come was when Calipari’s crew returned to Kentucky’s Rupp Arena and reminded Pope and BBN that their Don is still alive and well. As on point as the Razorbacks were that night, it was still without any help from Fland, Aidoo or Brazile. 

Since then, we’ve seen Arkansas get big wins to get into the Big Dance and we’ve seen them get two more in week one of Tournament play. But that’s been with less than stellar performances (or absences all together) from key members of the rotation, lapses into complacency after taking a double digit leads or terrible shooting nights like in the win over St. John’s.

The Red Raiders are similar to that version of the Wildcats, who were noted for their offensive prowess and three point perimeter shooting with big studs who know how to operate in the paint. Texas Tech has a better defensive reputation than the Wildcats Arkansas played in February, but then again, Kentucky had to step up their game in that category to reach this Sweet 16. 

What will determine who wins on Thursday will be if Texas Tech — like St. Johns and Kansas before them — has been as prepared for this moment by their run through the Big 12 as Arkansas has been by their trials and tribulations through the SEC. We will find out when Cal pulls up to San Francisco’s Chase Center driving his coach pulled by thoroughbreds dressed in horse harnesses.

Obviously, some national talking heads don’t believe the SEC has lived up to billing this postseason. The blue bloods must have forgot. Calipari was never one of you. He was adopted because he kept beating you. As he’s been reminded of here at Arkansas, he’s always been an underdog and he’s making himself at home rooting around in a Natural State.

Along the road to San Francisco , many Razorback fans seem to have forgotten. Coming into the season, we felt the Sweet 16 was the dance floor – not the crystal ball dangling from the ballroom ceiling. It was a beautiful — and some say improbable — dream scenario for Calipari’s first season wearing the ruby red kicks but here we are. 

Well Toto. It looks like the good prognosticators were right. The power to return  to the place where we belong has been ours all along. The question is will we see this team reach their potential?  

With all this team has been through, the opportunity remains in front of them. Can they seize the day or are they content to lapse back into the tendency that betrayed them from the beginning by thinking they can rest on their laurels when a future is never promised.

Carpe diem

Why not seize the day and show these snobs these Razorbacks are that team. Most of them are patting Cal on the head and picking the Red Raiders behind his back. Some because they truly believe Tech has more talent. Some because they believe Tech is better coached. We shall see.

There’s a lot to be said for mastering X’s and O’s, but Calipari continues to demonstrate that the art of motivating people and managing expectations is lost on too many observers these days. After watching Calipari up close and personal for the first time in his first year at Arkansas, here’s the takeaway. Great — not good — coaching is both an art and a science.

Richardson grasped that subtle distinction at Arkansas and crashed the Final Four three times — winning a national title and making the final game twice. Calipari’s record suggests he grasps it as well.

The question is: Has he lost his touch? Whether it's clear to people outside of Arkansas yet, no one can be sure. What we can be sure of is that Calipari and his team have a chance to prove it in the second week of March Madness 2025. And if they do, the results will scare a lot of people.

Calipari gambled the team would hold up over the course of a season, and if they can reach the finish line still pumping one heart beat  — all his critics (present company included of course)  must bend the knee and kiss the Don’s ring. 

It’s a terrifying thought for a lot of big blue egos out there, so no doubt they are already praying never to eat that crow. But if Calipari has been right all along that coaching is more of an art than a science, he will have rendered the kind of classical work that inspired Davinci to make Mona Lisa smile.