No. 10-seed Arkansas upended No. 7 Kansas 79-72 on Thursday night in the West Regional from Providence, R.I.
The win allows the Razorbacks to advance to Saturday's round of 32 against the St. John-Omaha winner. John Calipari saw Arkansas go from an 0-5 start in the SEC to eliminating Kansas from the NCAA Tournament.
"Good win," Calipari said. "Gutted it out. They went zone. We ended up shooting too many jumpers. They had to do some different things. Went a little triangle and 2, also. Screwed us up a little bit. The kids fought. Nelly (Johnell Davis) makes a shot, makes a couple free throws. Jonas (Aidoo) makes free throws. Took us three times to get it in. I don't care. We won. If it took us four, you know what we didn't do? We didn't turn it over. So it took our third out of bounds play to get it in. That's fine.
"We learned some stuff today, didn't we, boys? I told them after. There's stuff going forward that's good for us. This was a good one. That was an NCAA tournament game, two teams battling it out, making shots, making plays and we got away from them at the very end."
Arkansas (21-13) got a great performance from Aidoo who clearly outplayed Hunter Dickinson. Aidoo had 22 points, five rebounds, one assist, three steals and a trio of blocks. Dickinson, on the other hand, only had 11 points, nine rebounds and four assists.
"I knew it was going to be a big matchup from the jump, had to help the team out for sure," Aidoo said.
Kansas took a 67-64 lead with 4:55 remaining in the game. The Hogs were in a scoring drought against the Kansas zone having last scored on a Trevon Brazile basket with 7:26 remaining in the game.
But Boogie Fland hit a field goal, Aidoo knocked down a pair of free throws and Davis canned a trey to put the Hogs up 71-67 with 1:47 remaining as the Jayhawks turned the ball over time after time while going cold from the field. AJ Storr finally hit a pair of free throws to pull Kansas within 71-69. But Davis and D.J. Wagner hit a pair of free throws each to put Arkansas up 75-69 with just 22 seconds left in the game. Rylen Griffin hit a 3-pointer for Kansas, but Wagner and Billy Richmond each hit a pair of free throws to seal the win and set the final score.
"We all know we have something to prove," Aidoo said. "We went through a lot of adversity, injuries, missing players, let a couple games go. Starting 0-5 in the conference so, you know, just all those things. That helped us build our confidence, build our strength and get us ready mentally for the rest of the season."
Arkansas held a 47-44 lead at intermission. The Razorbacks went on an 8-0 run to start the second half and built a 55-44 lead with 17:12 remaining. Arkansas led until Storr hit a field goal with 5:43 remaining to put the Jayhawks up 65-64. But Arkansas outscored Kansas 15-7 the remaining way to get the victory.
"We have to rely on everyone," Calipari said. "When you're down in numbers, everyone's got to help you. That's where we are. Again, the second half, we didn't shoot it well. We didn't make threes, but we made the ones that mattered and we made free throws. Our man offense and the way we're moving the ball and what we're doing, I expected him to go zone and triangle and 2. I coached against him a bunch and he's done both. I thought we were prepared but we're a different team. The guy I usually have in the middle is Adou (Thiero) but he isn't here anymore. I tried Jonas or I tried TB, didn't like it. We tried to guard him there and we went to Jonas and putting TB on the baseline looked to be a better thing for us."
The Hogs forced 16 Kansas turnovers and that proved big in the second half. Arkansas had 10 turnovers. Arkansas shot 43.1% from the field, 25% from beyond the arc and 85% at the charity stripe. The Jayhawks also hit 43.1% from the field, but was 47.% from 3-point land and 87.5% at the free throw line.
The Razorbacks had Davis with 18 points, three rebounds and two steals. Wagner added 14 points, three rebounds and six assists along with two steals. Trevon Brazile added 11 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks. Fland had six points and three assists in his first game in several months. Karter Knox also had six points and three rebounds. Billy Richmond put in two points and pulled down four rebounds. Calipari was pleased to get Fland back and liked how Wagner played.
"Yeah, because I really believe in him," Calipari said. "The last thing that's going to come is the shooting. He's running and he hasn't done that in a while. When you watched him shoot yesterday, making 75% of his shots, yeah, go run seven times and now make a shot. It's different for him. But he was two out of three getting to the rim. The other one I'll have to watch but they said there was no body contact, it was all ball on that one layup. Maybe it was, but, you know, and I also have faith he'll make free throws."
Zeke Mayo led Kansas (21-13) with 18 points. Storr added 15 and KJ Adams 13 before leaving with an injury. Bill Self knew his team played hard, but just came up short.
"Well, I thought it was a good basketball game if you're a fan," Self said. "I thought we tried really hard and the zone kind of gave us a chance there in the second half, but we got off to terrible starts to start the game and to start the second half and I don't know what it was. We finished the game up three with 3:30, something like that, and three out of four possessions, we turned it over. So we did a lot of the damage ourself but their length bothered us all night long. We had open passes and couldn't pass over them and they got steals or deflections off of plays that could potentially be layups for us.
"We fought hard and, of course, AJ had his best game of the season and Zeke was great throughout. Disappointing but certainly, I thought, we gave a great effort."
photos Craven Whitlow
