We now know that it’s John Calipari’s 10th-seeded Arkansas Razorbacks who will face No. 7 seed Kansas in the opening round of this year’s NCAA Tournament on Thursday in Providence, Rhode Island.
Tipoff is set for 6:10 p.m. central on CBS.
And there are going to be tens of thousands of words said about this matchup between now and then.
The biggest reason is because of the two coaches, who are among the best in college basketball history and two of the top three winningest active coaches in the sport.
The other name joining Calipari and KU’s Bill Self? None other than St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino, who, if he can get by the 15 seed in the region, will await the winner of KU-Arkansas in Round 2.
Calipari sits at 855 career wins and counting, Pitino is at 846 and Self is a few back at 810. Either way, that’s some serious firepower in the region.
Before we get to the big picture of the 2025 West Regional in another story, let’s dive into the Razorbacks on a first-glance sort of level.
Here, in no particular order, are five things that stood out to me about KU’s first-round opponent.
• The Razorbacks have a top-20 defense nationally, according to KenPom.com, and it’s predicated largely on the Razorbacks’ ability to block shots. They rank 8th in the country in block percentage, rejecting a whopping 15.4% of their opponents’ shots. To make that number stand out a little more, let’s look at what it means in real numbers. KU, for example, averaged 62 shots per game this season. If the Razorbacks blocked 15.4% of those, that would be nearly 10 per game. Arkansas’ opponents didn’t average quite that many shots per game, so their number settled in right around 6 blocks per game. But the 186 total blocks by Calipari’s team ranked 6th in the country. Also of note is the fact that the Razorbacks also don’t have their shots blocked all that often either, ranking 18th nationally in that category at 7.1%. Arkansas plays an intense, in-your-face pressure style of defense and has three rotation players who stand 6-foot-10 or taller anchoring the front court to protect the rim if the guards don't take care of things up top.
• Boogie’s back, and that could be a really big deal. The sensational freshman missed 15 games after shutting it down following a hand injury midway through the season, but he is expected to be available for the NCAA Tournament and has been practicing. Prior to the injury, Fland, who scored 22 points in the exhibition win over KU last October, was averaging 15 points, 6 assists and 3 rebounds per game while shooting nearly 37% from 3-point range. He’s fast, creative, strong and athletic and proved to be a handful for just about anyone who faced him this season. In the exhibition game, Fland got to 22 points even while shooting just 1-of-6 from 3-point range. He also added 5 assists and 6 steals while looking way too fast for the KU defense. He might not be all the way back to 100% for this one, but Arkansas having him in the lineup makes the Hogs a much more dangerous team and a much tougher matchup for KU.
• The Razorbacks are battle-tested in a big way. Not only did they play in the SEC, which got a whopping 14 teams into the Big Dance this season. But they also had some fairly notable results against the top of the conference. Their three losses to Florida (a 1 seed), Auburn (another 1 seed) and Alabama (a 2 seed) came by an average of just 6 points per loss, and they beat Kentucky by 10 in Calipari’s return to Rupp Arena. Other than the Wildcats, the only other real quality win on their schedule came when they defeated Missouri, 92-85, at home on Feb. 22. Arkansas also opened SEC play with five straight losses and fell to 1-6 in conference play before going 7-4 the rest of the way before a 1-1 run in the SEC tournament. In the non-conference, they lost to Baylor on a neutral court in early November and Illinois on a neutral court three weeks later and beat Michigan on a neutral court on Dec. 10.
• Rebounding a must. But not because it’s an Arkansas strength. In fact, just the opposite is true. The Razorbacks rank 249th nationally per KenPom.com in offensive rebound percentage at 27.6%, two full points below the Division I average. KU has struggled with teams who get on the offensive glass, and a couple of Kansas’ Big 12 losses could be attributed directly to the Jayhawks’ inability to clean up the defensive glass. If that’s the case in this one, and Arkansas finds its way into a bunch of second-chance opportunities, the Jayhawks could be in real trouble. So, Hunter Dickinson will need help from everyone, but most notably KJ Adams, to make sure the defensive boards are secured. The Razorbacks rank 100th in allowing offensive rebounds (28.3%) so Kansas could hope for an edge there, but offensive rebounding isn’t exactly a strength of KU’s either, though the Jayhawks are not nearly as poor at it, statistically speaking, as Arkansas.
• Arkansas is a balanced offensive team, with six players averaging between 7.8 and 15.6 points per game this season. One concern of note for the Razorbacks is the fact that they’re expected to be without starting forward Adou Thiero, who averaged 15.6 points and 6.0 rebounds while shooting 55% from the floor this season. The Hogs aren’t known as a killer 3-point shooting team, making 33% for the season at 7.1 triples per game. And they were right around that number the first time they played the Jayhawks, hitting 6-of-24 from deep in the exhibition win. Twenty-three of their 85 points that night came at the free throw line and the Razorbacks forced KU into 17 turnovers, with 12 coming from Arkansas steals. Still, if you’re looking at weaknesses for this Kansas team, guarding the 3-point line has been one of them. Arkansas hit more than its average of 7 triples per game in 13 of 33 games this season, with the season-high being a 15-of-34 clip against UMES and their most efficient night coming in the road win at Kentucky, when they shot 13-of-25 from downtown. That game, back on February 1st, was the last time the Razorbacks reached double-digit 3-point makes in a game this season.
Arkansas By The Numbers:
Points per game – 76.6
Points allowed – 71.2
Field Goal % – 46.6%
Field Goal % D – 42%
3-point % – 33%
3-point % D – 31.9%
Free throw % – 73.4%
Rebounds – 35.3 per game
Rebounds allowed – 34.5
Turnovers – 385
Turnovers forced – 409
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
