PROVIDENCE — Arkansas coach John Calipari says he called his shot.
The Naismith Hall of Fame coach says he “predicted” that Arkansas would land in the same bracket as Kansas and St. John’s which feature fellow Hall of Fame coaches Bill Self and Rick Pitino, respectively.
“I kind of predicted it,” Calipari said here ahead of the NCAA Tournament game between No. 10 Arkansas and No. 7 Kansas on Thursday (7:10 p.m., CBS). “I predicted to my team in practice, here’s what they’re going to do to us.”
He added: “I said we’ll play Kansas. And if we’re the two, it’ll be him [Pitino]. I thought it may be played somewhere else. ”
Calipari thought the NCAA Selection Committee would boost the storyline potential by sending the teams to Lexington where both Calipari and Pitino won NCAA championships at Kentucky not Providence.“When I saw we weren’t there, I’m like, wow, somebody must have been sick and went to the bathroom or something for them not to put us there,” he said.
Between them, Pitino, Calipari and Self have won five NCAA championships and been to 14 Final Fours.
“It’s definitely a who’s who of college coaching and I’m sure a lot of people are asking, who the hell is that other guy in the bracket?,” cracked Omaha coach Chris Crutchfield, whose No. 15-seeded team faces St. John’s on Thursday.
“No, it’s an honor, and ran into them in the hallway and had great conversations with John and Bill and known those guys for a long time. Happy for the programs to get to this point.”
St. John’s is an 18.5-point favorite over Omaha, while Kansas is a 4.5-point favorite over Arkansas.
“Yeah, we’re playing with house money,” Omaha guard JJ White said. “The pressure is not on us, it’s on them. We’ll see what happens.”
Pitino said he hasn’t focused on the coaching matchups and is more concerned with his opponent.
“Regardless of who’s coaching, it really doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I’m really concerned with the talent we’re facing.”
Of the Kansas-Arkansas game, Pitino said: “You have no idea who’s going to win Kansas-Arkansas. Two great coaches, two great programs, two great teams. You have no idea who’s going to win…
I couldn’t tell you who the better team is. They’re both outstanding.”CBS would undoubtedly put a Pitino-Calipari or Pitino-Self matchup in a prime-time window on Saturday.
“I would think, and I don’t know positively, there will be a little story line with Kansas and Arkansas, but the potential of a Calipari-Pitino second-round game may put Kansas in a favorable light, to be honest with you,” Self said in response to a question from NJ Advance Media.
“We’ve been talked about enough over the years and over time. I’m kind of looking forward to having people talk about others and maybe we can kind of sneak up on somebody.”
No matter what happens, only one of the trio of Pitino, Self and Calipari can emerge from Providence and make the Sweet 16. The other two will be going home early.
“We have a hard game, a hard game tomorrow,“ Calipari said. ”Hard game. I just want to be at my best where I’m helping these kids for 40 minutes.”
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