NEW YORK — John Calipari was in a jovial mood after Arkansas’ narrow win over Michigan inside the “Mecca” of basketball. And why wouldn’t he be?
As the clock inched toward midnight in the city that never sleeps, the Hall of Fame coach burst into the interview room with a smile stretched across his face and iPhone in hand. He was chatting to someone on speakerphone.
It eventually became clear that it was Karl-Anthony Towns, a Calipari product who now stars for the New York Knicks. He had just watched his former coach lead the Razorbacks to an instant-classic 89-87 upset of No. 14 Michigan inside his new home and the two were trading jabs.
When the player he described as a “Chatty Kathy” finally hung up, Calipari immediately launched into “two of the dumbest things I’ve done” that nearly flipped the result.
He owned up to changing an easy baseline out-of-bounds play to something more difficult with Arkansas clinging to a one-point lead with 1:03 remaining. The result was Boogie Fland chunking up a tough shot, which missed and gave Michigan the ball with a chance to fully erase what had been an 18-point deficit just 9 minutes earlier.
Luckily for the Razorbacks, Tre Donaldson dribbled the ball out of bounds along the opposite baseline to give it right back with a four-second difference between the game clock and shot clock. That’s when Calipari made his second mistake.
With Michigan pressing, Arkansas got the ball in, but it was in the hands of Trevon Brazile — a career 66% free throw shooter. He was immediately fouled and, sure enough, missed both of the ensuing free throws.
“That even shows you, even having experience, you can do some dumb things sometimes,” Calipari admitted with a shrug. “I told them after, I did two things, they fought and I almost cost them the game.
“Hopefully, I’ll help them win more games than I’m going to cause them to lose, but that one, they saved me because I would have been in the throws of, ‘What in the world was I thinking?’”
Calipari’s players bailed him out.
On the very next possession, Michigan ran a pick-and-roll and Vladislav Goldin got the ball near the basket. The 7-foot-1 Russian attempted a go-ahead baby hook, but Brazile managed to get up and block it. He also came down with the rebound and was fouled again.
This time, the bouncy big man made 1 of 2 free throws to give the Razorbacks a two-point lead.
After each team called a timeout with 3.7 seconds remaining, the Wolverines drew up a play to send the game to overtime, but Johnell Davis got his hand on Danny Wolf’s pass to Roddy Gayle Jr., who briefly appeared to have him beat on a backdoor cut along the baseline.
Gayle tracked down the loose ball around around the free throw line and fired up a turnaround jumper, but it hit off the front of the iron as the buzzer sounded.
“What’s he come back and do down the other end?” Calipari said. “He blocked the shot. That means he’s getting over himself, and ‘I’m here to win the game. I missed two. So what? I’ll do something.’
“Nelly got beat on that back door. Oh, he was beat dead to rights, and what did he do? Instead of stopping, he fought, and he dove on the floor and tipped it with his right hand, and we win the game because of a play where he got beat, but it was an effort play.”
It may not have always been pretty, but the final sequence was a snapshot of Arkansas’ young season.
Calipari credited his team for its “will to win,” which has been on display in a couple of near comebacks, one completed comeback at Miami (Fla.) and several closer-than-expected wins over mid-majors.
Tuesday was monumental, though, in the fact that it came against a top-15 team riding a seven-game winning streak. Arkansas had previously come up short against Baylor and Illinois, two teams that have spent time in the AP Poll this year.
Beating Miami on the road in the ACC/SEC Challenge was significant, but beating a ranked team in the Jimmy V Classic makes this the Razorbacks’ first signature win of the Calipari era.
“I say it’s big because it shows what it can be, what we have the potential to be,” Fland said. “Our ceiling — there’s really no ceiling.”
Game of Runs
Arkansas and Michigan took the classic “basketball is a game of runs” cliche to the extreme Tuesday night.
Just as they’ve done in each of their other three high-major matchups, the Razorbacks got off to a slow start and found themselves in a big early deficit.
Midway through the first half, the Wolverines had jumped out to a 15-point lead and it was still 36-21 when Tre Donaldson knocked down a 3 at the 6:27 mark. Michigan went more than seven minutes without missing a shot or turning the ball over, going 11 of 11 from the floor.
However, that’s about the time the Razorbacks “got our wheels underneath us,” as Calipari said. They ended the half on a 24-13 run to make it a game again.
“At halftime, I was so happy because we could have been down 25,” Calipari said. “All of a sudden we’re down 4.”
Arkansas kept it up after the break. It scored the first 12 points of the second half and eventually ballooned its lead to 18 by the 9:45 mark. That means the Razorbacks out-scored Michigan 59-26 over a 16-minute, 42-second stretch.
Just when it seemed like they’d run away with it, the Wolverines made another run. They outscored Arkansas 25-9 the rest of the way, aided by the Razorbacks making only 2 of their last 11 shots and going just 2 of 6 from the charity stripe in the final two minutes.
“Getting down 15, you’re never out of the game,” Calipari said. “You’re up 18, they’re never out of the game. You got to finish it off. You got to make plays. You can’t think that, ‘We’re up 18. This thing’s over.’”
The latter of those is a lesson Arkansas had to learn against Michigan, as it hadn’t been in that position much this season. The former, though, was nothing new.
“It was all about just staying focused and staying locked in,” Boogie Fland said. “Other games we’ve been down before, so just knowing that we could come back, we just had to keep fighting and keep executing.”
Guard Duo Shines
A native of The Bronx, Tuesday’s game was a homecoming of sorts for Boogie Fland.
The freshman had more than 100 family and friends in the stands for his first game inside Madison Square Garden and gave them a show.
Overcoming a slow start, Fland finished with a game-high 20 points on 6 of 18 shooting. He was an inefficient 2 of 7 from beyond the arc, but drew seven fouls and made all six of his free throws. On top of that, Fland matched his season high with seven assists — a number he’s achieved five times in 10 games.
He grew up a little further away in Camden, N.J., but D.J. Wagner was also back in the northeast and played his best game of the year. He went for 16 points and 5 assists.
That means the backcourt duo combined for 36 points and 12 assists.
“We’re going to always feed off each other,” Fland said. “I feed off his energy and he feeds off mine and we’re just going to be the best guards we can be.”
Most of Wagner’s damage came in the second half. A bit of a streaky player, the sophomore scored 14 points after halftime, even knocking down a couple of big 3-pointers.
“Just the flow of the game,” Wagner said. “Just instincts, seeing how the game is going. That’s all it is.”
Still Not Healthy
Watching pregame warmups, it’d be easy to assume Arkansas basketball was finally fully healthy. All nine main rotation players were dressed out and seemed to be ready to go. That includes Zvonimir Ivisic, who missed the previous game with an ankle injury.
However, it turned out that Adou Thiero and Billy Richmond III were dealing with flu-like symptoms.
While Richmond played only 1 minute, Thiero played just under 22 minutes. There were still flashes of his incredible athleticism and he scored 13 points on 6 of 9 shooting, but he clearly wasn’t 100%.
“Today, Adou Thiero should not have played,” Calipari said. “Was anybody at our shoot around? He couldn’t go in the shoot around. I asked him for 10 minutes, just give me 10 minutes. And I took 21.”
Up Next for Arkansas Basketball
The Razorbacks will be back in the Natural State for the rest of their non-conference slate, but it’ll be another game before they return to Bud Walton Arena.
That’s because it’s time for their annual trip to the central part of the state. Arkansas squares off against in-state foe Central Arkansas at Simmons Bank Arena on Saturday.
After going 9-23 last year, the Bears are off to a 2-7 start that includes only one win over a Division I school — a 92-83 victory over UNC Asheville.
Tipoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT and the game will be streamed on SEC Network-Plus.
Other Arkansas Basketball Tidbits
- The announced attendance for Arkansas vs Michigan was 14,846, which is about 76.1% of Madison Square Garden’s capacity. A large chunk of the crowd consisted of Arkansas fans, as there were numerous loud Hog calls.
- This was Arkansas’ first appearance in the Jimmy V Classic, which started in 1995. However, the win improved John Calipari to 3-1 in the event, as he also won a game while at UMass and split a pair while at Memphis.
- The Razorbacks are also now 4-7 all-time at Madison Square Garden. That includes a 2-4 mark at the third version of MSG (1925-68) and now a 2-3 mark in the current version. Calipari’s record at the legendary arena is 16-12.
- Michigan’s Danny Wolf was phenomenal, finishing just one rebound and one assist shy of a triple-double. He ended the night with 14 points, 9 rebounds and 9 assists in 33 minutes. His frontcourt mate, the 7-foot-1 Vladislav Goldin, was the Wolverines’ other top player. The two 7-footers routinely teamed up to run the pick-and-roll, which Boogie Fland later joked was something he routinely did in 2K, the basketball video game.
- During the media timeout at the 11:24 mark of the second half, a double technical was assessed to Arkansas’ D.J. Williams and Michigan’s Will Tschetter.
- In addition to Karl-Anthony Towns, former Michigan and NBA player Juwan Howard was also in the crowd. That is notable because he was the Wolverines’ head coach until being fired after last season.
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Since the moment he revealed his new philosophy of bringing in only 8-9 key rotation players and filling out the rest of the roster with “walk-on” types who don’t receive the same level of NIL, the Hogs’ head man has been second-guessed by fans and media alike.
When questions about expanding the number of paid spots on the team to upward to 15 in light of revenue sharing come next summer were posed to Calipari around that time, part of the coache’s answer entailed reserving the right to change his mind later in the season.
Just 10 games into his first campaign with the Razorbacks, it seems as though those thoughts are already starting to creep into his mind. He admitted as much Tuesday night, even in the afterglow of the dramatic win over Michigan.
More here:
Arkansas vs Michigan Highlights
Postgame Interviews
Arkansas vs Michigan Box Score
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