Razorbacks' freshman magic silences Red Storm, critics- John Calipari postgame press conference

With two of John Calipari's most prominent contemporary rivals standing in the way of Arkansas' fourth Sweet 16 appearance in the last five years, serious games of one-upsmanship required were expected. However Calipari's road to redemption in his first season at Arkansas not only required one-upping Bill Self's Kansas Jayhawks and Rick Pitino's St. John's University Red Storm, but the Razorbacks themselves.

Everything John Calipari and star freshman said after defeating St. John's

On Saturday, Arkansas' freshman brigade of Billy Richmond, Karter Knox and Boogie Fland led the charge to weather the Red Storm and 40 minutes of foul play in a 75-66 second-round win — taking their cues from Razorback seniors Jonas Aidoo, Trevon Brazile and Johnell Davis who led the way in Arkansas' opening-round win over Kansas to start tournament play two days before.

Where the Magic Happens

"I said prior to the (Saturday's) game, 'How about we give ourselves a chance to make some magic?'" Calipari said. "Let's just go fight like heck. Play free and loose. Whatever happens, happens, but let's go see if we can create magic."

Calipari's magic worked like a charm as Richmond came off the bench to log a team-high 16 points and nine rebounds while Knox recorded 15 points, six boards and four blocks to spark the biggest upset so far of the 2025 NCAA Men's basketball tournament. Tenth-seeded Arkansas knocked off the No. 2 seeded Johnnies and the No. 7 seeded Jayhawks (who started the season ranked No. 1 overall in the country) during the first week of tournament play with Fland, who was on course for All-SEC freshman honors, returning to the line up for the first time since being sidelined with thumb surgery back in January. Fland — who made a key basket to end the first half and crucial steal down the stretch to seal Saturday's win —logged valuable minutes in both games coming off the bench to spell starting guards D.J. Wagner and Davis.

"They're not afraid, and they wanna prove themselves. I don't believe any of them were all freshmen in our league," Calipari said. "I think they have a little chip on their shoulder about that, but they're talented.

"Billy just has a different mindset. Like, if I turn it over, so what? He goes on to the next play. Karter and Boogie are still, you know, the freshmen. (If) they missed two. They end up missing five. But that Billy now on the other side — he'll turn it over some. Like, why'd you try to do that? I thought I could do it...And you know, they're fun to coach. I told them this is as rewarding a year as I've had based on the fact of how far we've come. These kids believed in each other, and I've told them many times. You're never gonna disappoint me."

Meeting Adversity in Ourselves

In a season marked by early adversity and disappointments, Calipari's Razorbacks will move on to face the Western Regionals No. 3 seeded Texas Tech Red Raiders who put down an upset bid by No. 11-seeded Drake 77-64 on Saturday as well. With players young and old finally getting healthy and playing some of their best basketball of the season, the Razorbacks are hoping they can finally put everything together and go even further in this year's tournament.

The Big East Champion Red Storm (31-5) came into Saturday's game looking like one of Arkansas' biggest challenges of the season after losing only four games by seven combined points all year. Noted for their physical and mental toughness in the mold of their Hall of Fame coach, Pitino, St. Johns encountered an Arkansas team which had fought their way out of an 0-5 grave to start Southeastern Conference (SEC) play. Arkansas also overcame injuries to their two leading scorers in Fland and sophomore foward Adou Thiero into an unlikely NCAA Tournament bid by winning eight of their final games of the regular season.

That rugged road through the nation's toughest conference seems to have only prepared the Razorbacks for what awaited them in the NCAA's March Madness Big Dance.

"We haven't faced that type of length and athleticism this year, but that's what the SEC is all about," said Pitino, who — like Calipari — formerly coached in the SEC at Kentucky. "But that's not the reason we lost the game. We lost the game because we did not move the basketball enough, and that led to us shooting a very low percentage. We we're a team that we have to get a high number of assists to win, and we didn't tonight."

The Razorbacks obviously had something to do with that as St. John's, which normally thrives at scoring inside the lane managed to make only eight of 25 layup attempts against Arkansas. St. Johns turned many of those misses into a whopping 28 offensive rebounds and won the battle of the boards 47 to 41 overall — resulting in 25 second-chance points.

Foul Play

Both teams shot poorly from three point range with Arkansas making only two of their 19 attempts while St. Johns went 2-of-22 from behind the arc. Arkansas won the game by making 42 percent of their shots overall while the Red Storm only managed to make 28 percent of their field goal attempts.

Big East player of the year R.J. Luis Jr., who is listed at 6-7, was shackled by Arkansas defenders like Knox (6-6) and Richmond (6-7) who matched up well against him in terms of length and athleticism. Luis managed to make only three of his 17 shot attempts and was benched by Pitino for the final five minutes — despite having only one foul.

That wasn't the case for many other players on both teams.

St. Johns power forward Zuby Ejiofor led the Red Storm with 23 points and 12 rebounds. He made seven of his field 12 goals attempts and nine of his 11 shots from the charity stripe. Both teams complained of the officiating after the game with in excess of one foul being called for each minute of the game (44 fouls over 40 minutes).

Arkansas' interior defenders were all hampered by foul trouble in the first half — forcing Calipari to go with a smaller line up by inserting Richmond and Fland off the bench. With Ejiofor at 6-9 being St. John's tallest player in the rotation, Arkansas wasn't at much of a size disadvantage with 6-11 Aidoo, 7-2 sophomore center Zvonimir Ivisic and 6-10 Brazile all being forced out of the game in the first half with two or more fouls.

With Calipari trying to preserve his senior big men for the second half stretch, Ivisic took the brunt of the fouls and fouled out with over 11 minutes to play in the game. Aidoo, Davis and Fland all finished with four fouls.

Arkansas had four players with at least two fouls in the first half including Fland. Zvonimir Ivisic fouled out with 11 minutes to go and Fland, Johnell Davis and Jonas Aidoo finished with four fouls each. The Red Storm likewise had multiple players forced to the bench due to foul trouble.

"Actually, I should've had the lead if we make free throws," said Pintino whose team made 71 percent of their free throws to Arkansas' 70 percent. "We should've had the lead, but we battled. We just didn't get the job done offensively. That was one of our poorest performances offensively. Give credit to their defense, but also we we shot ourselves in the foot with a lack of passing."

SEC Carry Over

Arkansas did win the assist category with 10 to St. John's five. Wagner led the Razorbacks in that category while also contributing eight points and a pair of steals. Overall, Calipari credited the win to the physicality his team endured in the slog through the SEC, which had a record 14 teams in this year's field of 68 entrants.

"There were there are some games we played this year where the other team said that was a physical team," Calipari said. "I reminded them that I know Saint John's is physical, but we're physical too. The second thing we talked about at halftime is in the first five minutes of this half, we've got to get them to call a time out. And these kids came out and executed — got some rebounds. 

"Now I don't know if any team that I've coached (against) in a while had 28 offensive (rebounds). I take that back. Tennessee did. Tennessee had 28 offensive rebounds, and we still won (against St. John's), which is crazy. Rick did a great job with his team all year. If they made a few shots, they probably beat us, so we were fortunate to get out."

Other notable Arkansas efforts on Saturday included eight points and eight rebounds from Brazile. Aidoo, who was limited to 22 minutes after leading the team with 22 points in the opening round win over Kansas, finished with seven points and seven rebounds. Fland — a native of New York — followed up his six-point effort against Kansas with six more, four rebounds and two dimes against his hometown University.

Fresh Start on Life

Afterwards Calipari said he was proud of his freshman class which faces unprecedented challenges like navigating the post-COVID Name Image and Likeness (NIL) college athletics landscape today — something his classes in the past only had a taste of.

"I keep reminding them how much you've overcome," Calipari said. "(Media members) think of winning and losing. You understand these kids have a piano on their back. It's never been this way in all my years of coaching because of NIL. If a kid got money, it's just more weight, and now the families are more involved than they've ever been.

"So now all of a sudden, they got the people around them. They got the piano on their back. They miss a shot now. Social media tees off on you. Are you really looking at that stuff? I mean, for them to do what they did and then we're still playing?"