A pair of teams playing their best at the right time clash on Thursday night when No. 1 Arizona faces No. 4 Arkansas in the West Region semifinals in San Jose, Calif.
Arizona (34-2) has won 11 in a row, while Arkansas (28-8) is on a 7-game win streak. Each entered the NCAA Tournament hot, having won their respective conference tournaments.
The top-seeded Wildcats are in the Sweet 16 for the third year in a row and fourth time overall under Tommy Lloyd, whose 146 wins are the most by a coach in Division I history in their first five seasons. But he hasn’t yet led them to an Elite Eight, with the program last playing there in 2015 and last reaching the Final Four in 2001.
“I think this team is built for the long haul, but I still respect the fact that we’re going to have to do it possession by possession,” Lloyd said. ” … Obviously, we want to be playing Saturday, but we’re not going to look past this opportunity or make it like an end-all, be-all or anything.”
The fourth-seeded Razorbacks have also found quite a bit of postseason success of late. They made consecutive Elite Eights in 2021-22 under Eric Musselman and are in the Sweet 16 for the second straight season since hiring John Calipari away from Kentucky, where he won a national title in 2012.
Both schools lean heavily on freshmen, with Arizona starting three and the Razorbacks two, including Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year Darius Acuff Jr.
Acuff, the first SEC player to lead the league in scoring and assists since Pete Maravich in 1969-70, is averaging 30 points and 6.5 assists in the NCAA Tournament, while the Wildcats’ top two scorers are freshmen with first-year players providing over half of the team’s scoring.
“There’s a reason they’ve got 34 wins,” Calipari said of Arizona. ” … Tommy has done a great job with his team. They play to their strengths just like we do.”
Arkansas averages 90.3 points per game, second-most in the country, shoots 50.2% from the field and 38.7% from 3-point range. Arizona averages 86.1 points, shoots 50% and gets to the line more than 26 times per game.
“They’re putting up video game numbers on offense,” Lloyd said.
Defense might be what gives Arizona the ultimate edge, particularly on the interior. Opponents are shooting just 43.7% on 2-pointers against the Wildcats, who have 7-foot-2 Motiejus Krivas protecting the rim.
“If you’re not ready for hand-to-hand combat, he’s throwing you aside,” Calpari said of Krivas. ” … This is one of those games, folks, where we do some things a little better than them, they do some things a little better than us. … It’s their will against our will, and who’s going to hold out the longest.”
Arkansas allows 54% shooting on 2-point shots, and Arizona gets 56.8% of its scoring from inside the arc.
This is the first meeting between the schools since a 1995 nonconference game hosted and won by Arkansas. The Razorbacks also came out on top in the 1994 Final Four en route to their lone national title, three years before Arizona cut down the nets for its championship in 1997.
The winner will face either No. 2 Purdue or No. 11 Texas on Saturday.
