SAN FRANCISCO — With a couple more victories, Hall of Fame coach John Calipari and his Cinderella squad at Arkansas may become the best magic act this side of David Copperfield. The No. 10-seeded Razorbacks (22-13) already have become one of the enduring memories of the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
However, Texas Tech — coached by the considerably lesser-known Grant McCasland — doesn’t figure to be an easy vanishing act.
McCasland said following his team’s 77-64 second-round win over Drake that a Sweet 16 appearance for the No. 3 Red Raiders (27-8) “has been our vision for this the whole time.”
They threw their low-post weight around, outscoring Drake 50-20 inside the paint a game after making 13 3-pointers in 46 attempts in an 82-72 first-round win over North Carolina-Wilmington.
They likely will need a little of both to stop another uprising by Calipari’s Razorbacks in Thursday’s West Regional semifinal at Chase Center. Arkansas — the lowest-remaining seed in the tournament field — reached the Sweet 16 for the fourth time in five seasons with a 75-66 smothering of No. 2 St. John’s on Saturday.
J.T. Toppin leads the Red Raiders in scoring (18.1 ppg), rebounding (9.3) and blocks (1.4). He also surpassed the 1,000-point milestone for his career during the tournament’s opening weekend.
Darrion Williams, who grew up about two hours away in Sacramento, has scored a team-leading 41 points in Texas Tech’s two tournament wins, including 28 against Drake. Elijah Hawkins, meanwhile, recorded his 800th career assist against Drake.
The Red Raiders are trying to reach the Elite Eight for the first time since back-to-back appearances in 2018 and 2019, the latter of which was followed by a trip to the national championship game.
Back then, Calipari was still at Kentucky and riding the success of developing some of the country’s top freshmen before their departure to the NBA. The Razorbacks are a throwback to his initial arrival on the national scene, when he took an unknown University of Massachusetts team to the Final Four in 1996.
In addition to telling reporters during the initial two rounds that he’s “kind of back to the roots of being an underdog,” Calipari also said he challenged his team to “make magic.”
“I said just prior to the (St. John’s) game, ‘How about we give ourselves a chance to make some magic?’ ” Calipari told reporters. ” ‘Let’s go fight like heck, play free and loose, whatever happens, happens.’ ”
What happened is that Arkansas made Calipari just the third coach ever to take four schools (Arkansas, Kentucky, Memphis and Massachusetts) to the Sweet 16. Lon Kruger did it with Florida, Kansas State, Oklahoma and UNLV, while Eddie Sutton made it that far with Creighton, Kentucky, Arkansas and Oklahoma State.
The Razorbacks are fueled by their defense. Arkansas held second-team All-American and Big East Player of the Year R.J. Luis Jr. to 3-for-17 shooting in the second-round victory. The Razorbacks also held the Red Storm to 9 percent shooting from 3-point range.
Offensively, Arkansas may get a boost from the expected return of forward Adou Thiero. He leads the Razorbacks in scoring at 15.6 points per game and is also their rebounding leader at 6 boards per contest. However, he has not played since he suffered a back injury on Feb. 22 against Missouri.
“Nobody is playing better than Arkansas right now,” McCasland told the school’s website. “You can tell they have a great energy and life to them. Coach Cal is doing an awesome job of giving them the belief and confidence that they’re going to win. We’re expecting nothing but their best.”
–Field Level Media
