FAYETTEVILLE -- No. 14 Arkansas is a four-seed in the West Regional of the NCAA Tournament as they will open play 13-seed Hawai'i at 3:25 p.m. on Thursday in Portland on TBS.
After defeating Vanderbilt 86-75 Sunday to win the SEC Tournament John Calipari wasn't worried about where the NCAA would elect to send Arkansas (26-8).
"We're going to enjoy this," Calipari said. "We're going to my house in Nashville. I have a house here. We're going to there. My daughter works at Vandy. Dr. Calipari. So I make her call me Coach Calipari because I've got to call her Dr. Calipari.
"We're going to the house. Watch the selection. Don't care where they put us. I literally don't care if we play on Tuesday or what seed. I don't. I'm teasing, but it's going to say a lot about these conference tournament, what they do."
Hawai'i (24-8) finished second in the Big West during the regular season. Among its eight losses were 60-59 to Oregon and 83-76 to Arizona State.
Hawai'i is led in scoring by senior center Isaac Johnson, 7-0, 240. Johnson is averaging 14.1 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.1 blocks per game. He's shooting 50.3% from the field and 31.5% from deep.
Senior guard Dre Bullock, 6-6, 190, is next at 13.5 points per game, 5.8 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.7 steals each outing. Senior forward Henry Rouhliadeff, 6-9, 230, also hits double figures with 10.8 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists. Senior guard Hunter Erickson, 6-3, 200, leads the team with 3.8 assists per game. He also scores at an 8.5 clip each game while pulling down 3.9 rebounds and 0.8 steal per game.
It's obvious that Hawai'i is an older team. When the Rainbow Warriors defeated UC Irvine 71-64 on Saturday to win the Big West Tournament they got big games from their stars. Johnson scored 22 points, pulled down seven rebounds and blocked three shots. Rouhliadeff had 15 points and 12 boards. Bullock added 15 points, seven rebounds and four steals.
Arkansas is in the same bracket as Arizona, Wisconsin, BYU, Gonzaga and Purdue among others. Calipari doesn't want his players thinking about any team other than Hawai'i.
"Celebrate the "W," Calipari said. "We'll figure that out later. You try to let them know, I've got your back. If things don't go right, I'll take responsibility. Just play and have fun, and we'll talk about the NCAA Tournament probably tomorrow about -- the first game is the hardest game. After that, you get a feel that it's no different than anything else.
"You've got to stay in your little corner. I said you start watching games and you're worried about people, and then they lose. It happened in this tournament. Two teams that my team thought we would be playing, they both lost. So you don't waste any time."
If Arkansas defeats Hawai'i they will face the Wisconsin (5) and High Point (12) winner on Saturday at a time to be determined.
Arkansas' SEC Tournament win was only the second in school history. Nolan Richardson's team did it in 2000. Calipari became the first coach to take two teams to the SEC Tournament championship having done it at Kentucky also.