There are two primary reasons the informed public believes No. 7 seed Kansas and No. 10 Arkansas stand a chance to make a run in the NCAA Tournament, despite a combined 25 losses this season: Bill Self and John Calipari.
A marquee coaching matchup in the first-round Thursday in Providence, R.I., features two of the top four active wins leaders in college basketball — Calipari is second (875), Self is fourth (831) — with the winner in the West Region game likely drawing the coach who ranks No. 1, Rick Pitino (884), and second-seeded St. John’s on Saturday. Tennessee’s Rick Barnes is third with 833 wins.
This is the 13th meeting between the coaching legends, who’ve split the previous 12 matchups.
“We have ties and he won a national championship against me, I won a national championship against him,” Calipari said of his history with Self, noting his Razorbacks won the preseason exhibition game in October over Kansas, which played without Hunter Dickinson. “We’ve played, he’s beaten us in Rupp (at Kentucky), we’ve beaten him in Allen (at Kansas).
“I mean, we’ve done this at a level for a long, long time, both of us. And I hate to play people that are friends or that I know well, but when you’re in this thing, you’re just, ‘Who are we playing? All right, let’s see what we have to do to try to win.'”
Arkansas (20-13) expects five-star freshman Boogie Fland to play for the first time in 16 games. He returned to practice recovered from a thumb injury the Razorbacks expected to knock him out for the season following Jan. 22 surgery. Calipari said Fland is capable of being a difference-maker for Arkansas, but the coaching staff is urging him to play within himself.
“If you asked me, ‘Will he play more than 15 minutes?’ I don’t know. Maybe less,” Calipari said. “But I know he’s talented. For our team, come in and defend and rebound, make easy plays, fly up and down the court, make the plays and be who you are.”
Minus Fland, the Razorbacks went 8-5 in a minefield Southeastern Conference schedule following an 0-5 start to league play with him.
Arkansas handed the keys to the offense to D.J. Wagner, who followed Calipari from Kentucky, when Fland was hurt in January.
Calipari swept aside questions about chemistry with Fland coming back. He said he told the team its seven-man rotation gained “breathing room” with Fland in the mix.
Fland introduced himself to Kansas in the preseason exhibition win with 22 points, six steals and five assists.
The anchor for Kansas (21-12) is Dickinson, who averaged 17.6 points and 10 rebounds per game and at 24 brings a veteran calm to the court. Dickinson had 11 games with at least 20 points in 2024-25 and is atop the list of Calipari’s worries, even though Kansas is 5-6 in its past 11 games.
“They’re a different team with him,” Calipari said.
Neither coach is accustomed to carrying double-digit losses or entering the tournament in the No. 7-No. 10 game. Kansas has never been lower than a No. 4 seed in Self’s 22 seasons in Lawrence, but he did guide No. 7 seed Tulsa to the Elite Eight in the 2000 NCAA Tournament.
“Trust me on this: whether you’re a 3 or a 7 or a 10 or whatever you are, there could be an advantage playing a team that could be maybe a 15 or 16 that, obviously, you may have more depth or more size or more talent in the first-round game,” Self said. “But after that game, you got to win five games against people who are all really good. In this particular situation, if you’re not a 1 or 2, you got to win six games against people who are all really good.”
The Jayhawks lost to Arkansas in the second round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, 72-71 in Des Moines, Iowa, but played without Self on the bench because of a heart issue that hospitalized him during the conference tournament. One reason Calipari is in Year 1 at Arkansas: he failed to get the most out of his deeply talented Kentucky teams.
“To me, (Calipari is) always great at recruiting great players and terrific athletes,” Self said. “I think they do a good job coaching them too, and I think they usually guard, and I’m sure they’ll do that, and they’re battle-tested obviously going through the grind of the SEC. It’ll be a fun, competitive game.”
Calipari went 32-11 in the NCAA Tournament at Kentucky and has 57 career wins, but was 1-3 in his past four games — including two first-round losses — before accepting the Razorbacks’ job in April 2024. He also has six Final Four appearances and is one of two coaches — Pitino being the other — who’ve taken three programs to the Final Four.
Kansas survived No. 13 Samford, 93-89, to open the 2024 NCAA Tournament and has a 47-5 record in first-round games all-time. The Jayhawks won the national championship in 2022, Self’s second with the Jayhawks in his fourth Final Four appearance.
Kansas beat Arkansas in the 1991 Elite Eight, 93-81 on the way to a runner-up finish to Duke.
–Field Level Media
