PROVIDENCE, R.I. — First, Arkansas men’s basketball team had to make the NCAA Tournament.
That was in serious doubt right out of the gate in SEC play. The Razorbacks and first-year coach John Calipari opened 0-5 in the conference, ending with an 83-65 humbling at Missouri, and after losing 65-62 at home to Oklahoma on Jan. 24 stood at 12-8 overall and 1-6 in the SEC.
“It definitely wasn’t fun, going through that time,” said sophomore guard D.J. Wagner.
“I feel like that made us who we are. It built all of our characters, as players, as coaches, even as people. It’s a life lesson you can take. No matter how down you are, it’s always going to get better as long as you keep working. Don’t ever put your head down and mope.”
Two months have passed, and here we are: After pulling things together and rallying to the finish line heading into Selection Sunday, Arkansas is off to the Sweet 16 after grinding out a highly physical 75-66 win against No. 2 St. John’s that gives Calipari another feather in his cap in the longtime rivalry with Rick Pitino.
The Razorbacks held St. John’s to 28% percent from the field and 2 of 22 from 3-point range, overcoming the Red Storm’s 28 offensive rebounds and 25 second-chance points. Matching the intensity of the Big East champions, Arkansas showed the long-term payoff from its regular-season struggles.
“We had to fight to get here,” freshman forward Karter Knox said. “It’s a blessing that my guys right here, that we worked hard in practice and the gym.”
This is a team shaped by adversity, heating up at the right time thanks to the pitfalls that pockmarked a regular season that was once on life support before a second-half surge against one of the toughest schedules faced by any team in this year’s bracket.
No hurdle was harder to overcome than the poor league start. This forced the Razorbacks to figure out “that we absolutely need each other or we’re going down together,” said Calipari, “and they became one heartbeat.”
“I was with these guys. We had guys in a dark place where they would look like that, but now they know I can be in a dark place like that and overcome it. I hope they also understand that saying, that you can go fast alone but if you want to go far, you go with others. I think they now understand that we all got to do what we’re supposed to do and we got to do this together. We can’t be selfish trying to get our own. Let’s play off one another, and they’re doing it.”
The grind of life in the SEC, which sent a record 14 teams into this year’s field, prepared Arkansas for the grind of gutting out single-digit wins against the Red Storm and No. 7 Kansas in the first two rounds. Of the Razorbacks’ 18 league games, just four came against an opponent that missed the tournament: two against LSU and another pair against South Carolina.
With nearly every game these past two months carrying major postseason implications, it’s not a stretch to say that Arkansas had already been in a win-or-go-home mindset long before Thursday.
“It prepares you a lot,” Wagner said. “The SEC is a very physical conference. Every game, you’re going to play against teams like that. Very physical, very talented like that. Every game we played in the SEC was like that game. That’s how it prepared us.”
In hindsight, however, these early stumbles can also be explained in part by the adjustment to Calipari’s style and the offseason turnover in personnel that completely remade last year’s roster.
Thirteen players left the program after former coach Eric Musselman’s departure for Southern California, with five exhausting their eligibility and the rest entering the transfer portal. In their place came a six-member transfer class ranked among the nation’s best along with another six freshmen, including five-star guard Boogie Fland.
Another factor was injuries. Fland suffered a hand injury in January, when he was averaging 15.1 points, 5.7 assists and 3.4 rebounds per game, and was expected to miss the rest of the season. But the extended runway provided by the tournament berth gave time for Fland to recover, and he played 24 crucial minutes against the Jayhawks and another 20 against the Red Storm.
One key contributor who is still sidelined is leading scorer Adou Thiero, a junior forward who followed Calipari from Kentucky and hasn’t played since Feb. 22 because of a knee injury. Thiero practiced with the team this week and could return for the Sweet 16 when the Razorbacks play the winner of Texas Tech-Drake in San Francisco.
“Everybody had something going on this season,” senior forward Jonas Aidoo said.
One transfer in particular has proven to be vitally important to this surprising run out of the opening weekend. Former Florida Atlantic guard Johnell Davis was part of the Owls’ run to the Final Four two seasons ago, giving him an unmatched perspective on what it takes to win as the underdog on the tournament stage.
After averaging 11.3 points per game on 38.8% shooting during the regular season, Davis has scored a combined 31 points in two tournament games, making 10 of his 20 attempts and 5 of his 13 shots from 3-point range.
“Of course we rely on him,” Aidoo said. “Just having him with that experience means a lot to us, because he’s been here before.”
Nurtured along slowly but steadily, it’s the young core of Arkansas’ roster that has stepped up in the postseason to create an exponentially more complete and more dangerous team than the one that once seemed headed for a losing finish.
“We knew we were a really talented team,” said Aidoo. “It was just a matter of putting it together.”
Fland’s return has broadened Calipari’s options in the backcourt; he should continue to improve as he shakes off the dust from his extended absence. Knox had 15 points against St. John’s and has scored in double figures in eight of his past 11 games. After averaging 9.3 minutes of action in Arkansas’ first eight SEC games, freshman forward Billy Richmond has played an average of 25.6 minutes in his past eight appearances and had a team-high 16 points on Saturday.
“Well, they’re not afraid and they want to prove themselves,” said Calipari.
The play of these freshmen makes you wonder if there’s even more in the tank. After fighting through the hardships of the regular season, could there be enough, maybe, to make an utterly unexpected run all the way to the Final Four?
“To be where we are, still playing and still fighting and having fun, I’m enjoying it,” Calipari said. “Like I said, I’m not going to let anything faze me in this. Here we are, let’s have fun.”