Moments before they renewed their decades-long rivalry, Rick Pitino and John Calipari met near midcourt and shared a few laughs.
But by the end of Saturday’s much-hyped slugfest in the NCAA Tournament’s second round, Calipari was the only one with a reason to smile.
A storybook season for Pitino’s second-seeded St. John’s came to a sudden end as Calipari’s 10th-seeded Arkansas pulled off a 75-66 upset in Providence, R.I., eliminating the Red Storm from the Big Dance.
The Johnnies’ (31-5) season-long shooting deficiencies finally caught up with them against an Arkansas team (22-13) whose size proved too much to overcome. St. John’s shot just 21-of-75 (28.0%), including 2-of-22 from 3-point range, as Arkansas’ defenders clogged the paint and dared the Johnnies to beat them from outside.
RJ Luis Jr., the Big Player of the Year, finished with nine points on 3-of-17 shooting and spent the game’s final 4:56 on the St. John’s bench.
The game was hyper-physical from the jump, which ultimately doomed St. John’s. Do-it-all guard Kadary Richmond played only 16 minutes before he fouled out. Four quick fouls limited fellow starter Simeon Wilcher to 14 minutes.
One of Arkansas’ best players, 6-11 senior Aidoo, also picked up four fouls, limiting him to 21 minutes. He finished with seven points.
Arkansas freshman Billy Richmond III helped pick up the slack with 16 points off the bench, tying a career high.
For the fourth game in a row, the Red Storm got off to an ice-cold start.
Arkansas’ size advantage loomed large as St. John’s struggled to get good looks near the basket. The Johnnies missed seven lay-ups in the first nine minutes and started a woeful 5-of-28 from the field.
Five of those missed lay-ups were by Luis, who started 0-of-7.
At one point, the Johnnies went nearly seven minutes without a field goal, a stretch in which they missed 14 shots in a row.
They trailed, 22-14, more than 12 minutes into the game.
But as they did in recent wins over Marquette, Creighton and Omaha, the Red Storm came surging back.
Luis made his first field goal with 7:37 left before halftime when he tipped in his own miss. On the next possession, an offensive rebound by Aaron Scott led to a Lefteris Liotopoulos 3-pointer.
Zuby Ejiofor scored 16 points before halftime, with seven of those points coming during an 18-6 run that put St. John’s up, 32-28.
But Arkansas ended the half on a 7-0 run, which Bronx-born freshman Boogie Fland capped with a driving lay-up in the waning seconds to put the Razorbacks up, 35-32.
The Johnnies shot just 23.8% before the break — their worst shooting half of the season — and needed 14 offensive rebounds to keep the score close.
St. John’s had dominated second halves all season, but Arkansas never relinquished its lead.
The Razorbacks came out of the break on an 18-8 run and scored their first 13 field goals of the half in the paint. St. John’s trailed by two with under three minutes remaining before Arkansas pulled away late.
The game delivered a long-awaited new chapter in the epic history of Pitino and Calipari, who first faced each other in 1992 but had not squared off since 2016.
Saturday marked the fifth meeting in the NCAA Tournament between the Hall of Fame coaches, who split the previous four. The prior bouts included the 1996 Final Four, where Pitino and Kentucky defeated Calipari and UMass; and the 2012 Final Four, where Calipari’s Kentucky team beat Pitino-led Louisville.
With Saturday’s loss, Pitino fell to 10-14 against Calipari at the college level.
Saturday’s win was Arkansas’ biggest under Calipari, who became the Razorbacks’ head coach last offseason after 15 years at Kentucky. Calipari defeated another Hall of Fame coach, Bill Self, in Thursday’s 79-72 win over Kansas in the first round.
The Red Storm’s second season under Pitino, meanwhile, ended in heartbreak.
St. John’s had lost its first four games by a combined seven points.
It won its first outright Big East regular-season championship since 1985 and its first Big East Tournament since 2000.
Playing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019, the Johnnies’ picked up their first win at the Big Dance in 25 years with Thursday’s 83-53 victory over No. 15 Omaha.
But their first trip to the Sweet 16 since 1999 will have to wait at least one more year.
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