John Calipari embraces new Cinderella role with 10th seeded Arkansas in the Sweet 16

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SAN FRANCISCO — In an NCAA Tournament sorely lacking in Cinderella stories, coach John Calipari has the unusual role of being the closest thing to it.

After routinely taking powerhouse teams in his first decade at Kentucky to the Sweet 16 and beyond, Calipari surprisingly has done the same in his first season at Arkansas with the 10th-seeded Razorbacks set to take on No. 3 seed Texas Tech in the West Region semifinals as the only double-digit seed remaining in the tournament.

“My guess is other than a fan of Arkansas, no one is picking us to win the game,” Calipari said. “But the great news in this tournament, you’ve got to play the games.”

Top-seeded Florida will take on No. 4 seed Maryland in the other Sweet 16 game in San Francisco.

Calipari is preparing for his 16th trip to the Sweet 16, having gone previously at stops at UMass, Memphis and Kentucky. Lon Kruger and Eddie Sutton are the only other coaches to get this far with four schools.

Calipari went to Final Fours at all three of those previous stops, winning his only title in 2012 with the Wildcats.

After failing to make it to the second weekend of the tournament once in his last four seasons at Kentucky, Calipari left after a first-round loss to Oakland last season to take over at Arkansas.

While he has enjoyed success at every stop, it looked like it might not be immediate at Arkansas when the Razorbacks got off to a 1-6 start in SEC play. But a win in Calipari’s return to Kentucky helped turn the season around and now Calipari is back in the Sweet 16 with an underdog after he had a top two seed in his region in 11 of his first 15 trips to this round.

“We approach the postseason the same. I’ve been the 10 seed. I’ve been the 8 seed. I’ve been other seeds,” he said. “There’s so many ways of doing this, including on the court. There’s a lot of ways to do this and have success. So, for me, what I’ve done, I want this to be like regular…

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Publish date : 2025-03-27 17:08:00

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