1 hour ago 1

Calipari's message to freshmen in NCAA Tournament: 'Stay in the moment'

The Arkansas Razorbacks had to wait until almost the end of the Selection Show to hear their names called, but they're going to the NCAA Tournament as a 10-seed and will play 7-seed Kansas in the first round in Providence, Rhode Island, on Thursday.

The Hogs battled through a lot of adversity throughout the season. Injuries plagued the team nearly all year, and they started 0-5 in Southeastern Conference play. Still, the Razorbacks showed resilience and finished with an overall record of 19-12 and 8-10 in the SEC.

Arkansas did that in part because the play of its freshmen. The trio of Billy Richmond, Karter Knox and Boogie Fland all contributed at different points of the season. Fland was electric for the first 18 games of the season before he was sidelined after thumb surgery. He's back now, Calipari said, and wants to contribute as much as he can.

Knox and Richmond stepped up when Fland — as well as junior forward Adou Thiero — went down, and the Hogs relied on both over the course of the season. But the NCAA Tournament is a different kind of animal, and head coach John Calipari said his message to his freshmen who are experiencing the tournament for the first time is to focus on the right things.

"Stay in the moment, stay in your little pod," Calipari said was his message to the freshmen. "Don’t watch other games, they mean nothing. You worry about who you’re playing and all of a sudden go, ‘oh they lost,’ so you might as well not worry. Just stay in the moment, stay together, be together. Be locked in with what we’re doing."

Knox has been a regular in the starting lineup with 21 starts under his belt, and has appeared in every game for the Razorbacks this season. He's averaging 5.6 points and 2.8 rebounds per game, and has come along well in the last five games, where he's shooting 48.6% from the field.

A native of Tampa, Florida, Knox's three-point threat is something the Hogs used against Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament. He connected three times, all at critical junctures in the game, to keep the Razorbacks in it.

"We were just falling back on our training, going hard," Knox said last Wednesday after the loss. "In the workouts go hard, practice. Just translate it to the game. We went out there and fought. Didn't get the outcome. Have a bigger tournament to worry about."

Richmond hasn't started a game this season, but he's impacted nearly all of the 21 games he's played in. Arkansas associate head coach Chin Coleman singled out Richmond after the Hogs' win over LSU on Feb. 12, and said his impact was one of the main reasons the Razorbacks won.

The Camden, New Jersey, native scored 10 in the Hogs' regular-season finale win over Mississippi State and broke out for 15 against Ole Miss in the second round of the SEC Tournament, a game the Razorbacks lost on a last-second three-pointer.

As much as Richmond makes big plays, he's also been turnover prone. He had seven against Vanderbilt on March 4 and committed four in the loss to Ole Miss mentioned above. Still, his energy is infectious, and it's something Calipari said the team needs.

"Billy plays so fearless," Calipari said. "Now, some of that ends up being turnovers, but the other things he does by making plays, I got to let that go some. You have to let him make some mistakes."

As for Fland, don't expect him to come back to the team and assume the same role he had in the past. The Hogs are peaking at the right time, and neither Calipari nor Fland want to mess that up. But he will provide a nice boost off the bench and give the other guards a breather they didn't have with him out.

"He wants to play," Calipari said of Fland. "The greatest piece of it was Boogie saying to me, ‘I don’t want to screw them up. I just want to help’. I said, ‘well, you may play 10-15 minutes’. But, so what? He said, ‘I’d be good’. And I said, ‘we may need you more. I don’t know’.

"But then I grabbed the team and said ‘it’s not really changing anybody’s role or what’s going on, we just have an eighth man’. Instead of having seven, having foul trouble or having two or three guys not playing well, which is normal stuff, now you have a little bit of breathing room."

Fland hasn't appeared in a game for the Razorbacks since Jan. 18 against Missouri. He hurt his thumb in their game against Florida on Jan. 11 and underwent thumb surgery in New York City on Jan. 22. Calipari said he didn't know until Saturday that Fland was going to be able to go.

"Trainer came up and said yesterday he’s going through these workouts, he’s going to practice tomorrow," Calipari said. "We talked to the doc and I said 'Well, then let’s put it out that there’s a chance he’ll play this weekend.” I didn’t do it for (seeding), I thought we were in too. They weren't going to change our seed because Boogie was going to play, but let them know. Let the country know."

The Razorbacks will need strong contributions from all three freshmen if they hope to make a run in the NCAA Tournament. The first step in that run is on Thursday against the Kansas Jayhawks. Tipoff is set for 6:10 p.m. CT and it will air on CBS.

Read Entire Article