Sweet 16: Calipari guides Arkansas past Pitino, St. John’s 75-66 for 16th trip to regional semifinal

John Calipari is heading to the Sweet 16 for the 16th time, and this one could be the sweetest of all.

Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks beat longtime nemesis Rick Pitino and No. 2 seed St. John’s 75-66 on Saturday, sending their itinerant coach to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament with his fourth school.

Billy Richmond III scored 16 points and Karter Knox had 15 for the 10th-seeded Razorbacks, who sent Kansas and their Hall of Fame coach Bill Self home from the “Region of Coaches” in the first round.

But the victory over his longtime rival was especially sweet for Calipari, who brought the Razorbacks (22-13) back to the tournament in his first season in Fayetteville despite early-season injuries that left them 0-5 to start the Southeastern Conference schedule.

“I told them, ‘This is as rewarding as a year I’ve had, based on how far we’ve come,’” he said.

Zuby Ejiofor had 23 points and 12 rebounds for Big East champion St. John’s (31-5). Conference player of the year RJ Luis Jr. had nine points, half his season average, on 3-of-17 shooting.

“They outplayed us. They deserve to move on and we don’t,” Pitino said. “That’s what March Madness is all about. No matter how good a regular season you have, you play this way, you’re going to get beat.”

Pitino’s history in Providence — he took the Friars to the 1987 Final Four — gave him a home-court advantage as he arrived in March Madness with an unprecedented sixth school.

So many of those teams were built with a full-court defense and 3-point shooting.

St. John’s, which beat Omaha in the first round, had the No. 1 defense in the country this season to win the Big East, returning to the tournament for the first time since 2019 with a No. 2 seed that was its best in 25 years.

But the Red Storm’s shooting deserted them on Saturday and they became the first team seeded fourth or better to exit what’s been a chalky tournament so far.

“Rick did a good job with his team all year,” Calipari said. “If they made a few shots, they probably beat us. We were fortunate to get out.”

The teams combined to make four 3-pointers on 41 attempts, with St. John’s shooting 28% from the floor overall.

“I hate to see them go out this way,” Pitino said. “We thought we were championship-driven in our minds, but I have been disappointed before with this. You hate to see us play like that.

“I don’t mind going out with a loss, I just hate to see us play that way offensively,” he said. “It’s just a bitter pill to swallow with that type of performance.”

End game

Arkansas led by 13 in the first half and had an eight-point lead with eight minutes to play before the Johnnies cut it to 62-60 with 6:11 left. But St. John’s missed its next six attempts from 3-point range, and made just one of its last nine shots — Ejiofor’s dunk with 20 seconds left.

Knox made a pair of free throws, and then Deivon Smith dribbled the ball off his knee and out of bounds. When Richmond was fouled with 5 seconds left, the Razorbacks ran down the court in celebration, waving their arms for the outnumbered Arkansas fans in the crowd.

Up next

Arkansas heads to San Francisco to play the winner of Saturday night’s matchup in Wichita, Kansas, between third-seeded Texas Tech and No. 11 seed Drake.

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