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ESPN Staff Writer- Mike Reiss is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the New England Patriots. Reiss has covered the Patriots since 1997 and joined ESPN in 2009. In 2019, he was named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- John Calipari had a message for his No. 10-seeded Arkansas men's basketball team before Saturday's matchup against No. 2 St. John's in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
"I said prior to the game, 'How about we give ourselves a chance to make some magic? Let's go fight like heck, play free and loose, [and] whatever happens, happens,'" he said.
The Razorbacks responded in a physical, hard-fought 75-66 win that put Calipari, in his first season with the team, back in the Sweet 16 for the 16th time. He became just the second coach to take four schools to the Sweet 16, joining Lon Kruger (Florida, Kansas State, Oklahoma, UNLV). Calipari previously took UMass, Memphis and Kentucky.
What makes this trip so special for the 66-year-old Calipari is that it seemed so improbable at the end of January.
"I told them this is as rewarding a year as I have had based on how far we have come," he said, a reference to Arkansas starting 0-5 in the SEC and dealing with extended absences due to injuries to leading scorer Adou Thiero and guard Boogie Fland.
Freshman forward Billy Richmond III led Arkansas with 16 points and nine rebounds Saturday, while Karter Knox added 15 points (9-of-11 from the free throw line) and Johnell Davis had 13.
Arkansas (22-13) next plays No. 3 seed Texas Tech -- a 77-64 winner over No. 11 Drake -- in San Francisco.
This is the furthest a Calipari team has advanced since 2019, when his Kentucky squad lost to Auburn in the Elite Eight. Since the COVID-19 season in 2020 with no tournament, Kentucky had missed the NCAA tournament, was upset by No. 15 seed St. Peter's in the first round, fell to No. 3 Kansas State in the second round and lost in the first round to No. 14 Oakland.
That flurry of March infamy led Calipari to leave for Arkansas amid the bellowing of the locals in Lexington, a move that rocked the sport on Final Four weekend in 2024. After looking hopeless at times earlier this year, Arkansas' resurrection has been one of the sport's biggest surprises in 2025.
Saturday's slugfest against St. John's was a hot ticket. The game drew celebrities and boldfaced names, including Spike Lee, Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens and New York Knicks executive vice president William Wesley (a.k.a. "World Wide Wes") -- a sign of how it transcended a typical second-round NCAA tournament matchup.
The coaching clash between Calipari and Rick Pitino naturally added to the sizzle.
The entrance to Providence's Federal Hill, an area a few full-court heaves from the arena, is adorned with an upside-down pineapple. It's a traditional Italian symbol of abundance and quality and a fitting emblem for the matchup of two Hall of Fame coaches who both proudly mentioned their Italian heritage this week.
So tension and rivalry were overflowing in abundance and quality in a familiar launching pad for both coaches' careers.
Pitino led Providence to the Final Four in 1987 then left to coach the Knicks.
Calipari's defining run during his time at UMass, a Final Four trip in 1996, started with a weekend in Providence. He walked to the postgame news conference with his arm around retired Brown University sports information director Chris Humm, who escorted him in 1996. Humm wore a pineapple tie as an ode to the Federal Hill entrance and their successful walks to pressers a generation before.
Calipari and Pitino reuniting here is so powerful because their journeys are more familiar than they would care to admit: punitive run-ins with the NCAA, high-profile exits at the NBA level and redemption arcs from both. Winning is the ultimate way to survive and advance in college basketball, a theme that's as old as the tournament bracket itself.
"It's been a really tough year," said Arkansas assistant Bruiser Flint, who first coached with Calipari at UMass in the 1990s. "We lost our best players. We didn't really have that many guys. He kept 'em together. He got the big guys going. He kept the focus. He kept telling the guys to believe we're going to be the most improved team in the country. And we did that.
"And he made the guys believe, and then he kept telling everybody, your time will come and we're going to need you and just be ready. And he just kept preaching that, and that's a big reason why we're here right now."
The day before the matchup with St. John's, Calipari said he hopes his career will one day be viewed through the lens of a hard-driving coach whose teams played hard and competitively.
"I am who I am," he said. "Like it or not, this is who I am and how I deal with kids."
His Arkansas players have responded in one of the most surprising stories of the tournament.
"The fire in him, he wants the best for us and he wants us to win in every moment," guard D.J. Wagner said. "So every time you look over there, you going to see him screaming or going crazy, and it is really out of love because he cares for us and he wants us to win so bad.
"I feel like he deserves everything. He's an amazing coach. He's a legend."