Who said this year’s men’s NCAA tournament was lacking madness? Playing deep into the night, the Texas Tech Red Raiders and Arkansas Razorbacks delivered the game of the tournament to date Thursday in the Sweet 16.
For much of the evening, it appeared John Calipari’s March revenge tour was destined to extend another two days. Instead, a ferocious comeback from a deficit that had ballooned as large as 16 in the second half lifted Texas Tech to an improbable come-from-behind victory and a date with the Florida Gators in the Elite Eight. The hero? Red Raiders veteran Darrion Williams, who powered through shooting woes for most of the game to hit a tying three with 10 seconds to go in regulation and the winning bucket in the final seconds of overtime.
“It doesn’t matter the score, we could be down 20 and we’re going to keep fighting,” Williams said in the CBS postgame interview.
Arkansas used a similar recipe to the one employed to beat the Kansas Jayhawks and St. John’s Red Storm a week ago. Its size was disruptive on both ends, hunting mismatches offensively with Johnell Davis and making things tough around the rim for an undersized Red Raiders group missing key player Chance McMillian. Things went from bad to worse for the Red Raiders early in the second half, with a seven-point halftime deficit quickly exploding to 16 by the under-12 media timeout of the second half. Tech lacked answers, lacked direction and seemed overwhelmed … especially 5' 11" point guard Elijah Hawkins, who looked outmatched physically and missed his first nine shots of the game. This bizarro Cinderella run from the Hogs seemed on its way to continuing.
The comeback was sparked, more than anything, by just sheer determination and will. One possession particularly embodied that. Trailing by 13 with under nine minutes to go, a pair of reserves in Kevin Overton and Federiko Federiko started to swing the game. Overton grabbed an offensive rebound on a missed free throw, and the duo combined for six offensive boards on that possession alone before Federiko finally finished around the rim. It was a never-say-die, refuse-to-lose possession for the Red Raiders that felt big at the time and even bigger now that the result is final. Texas Tech may have been undersized, but it outworked Arkansas more often than not. The Red Raiders wouldn’t have been close to a win while shooting 8-of-32 from three if not for their astonishing 22 offensive rebounds. Fittingly, it was Federiko who slapped the Texas Tech sticker onto the bracket in the locker room postgame: His 13 minutes were some of the best of anyone on the team.
Williams’s first clutch shot came on something of a directionless possession, with the Nevada Wolf Pack transfer eventually taking his man off the dribble and elevating for the tying three. The second, in OT, was a bully bucket, backing down freshman Karter Knox and finishing through contact for the eventual winner. Much of making a deep run in March tends to be rooted in finding ways to win without your best stuff, and Thursday’s game was a prime example for the Red Raiders with Hawkins in a miserable slump, Williams needing 26 shots to get his 20 points and even JT Toppin experiencing some unusual struggles around the basket against the elite Arkansas length.
And so for the third time since 2018, the Red Raiders are among the final eight teams standing in the Big Dance. They’ll get Florida on Saturday for a spot in the Final Four in a battle of two of the top young coaches in the sport in Grant McCasland and Todd Golden, each of whom have engineered remarkably fast turnarounds at their respective jobs. One key factor to monitor: The health of McMillian, who hasn’t played since March 13 against the Baylor Bears as he works his way back from an oblique injury. It will take all hands on deck to upset the Gators, so his status will be closely watched in the coming days.
It’s an unsatisfying end to a dream run for Arkansas, whose fans likely started to fantasize of a trip to San Antonio with how much of this game looked. Considering where this team came from, an 0–5 start in the SEC and a long shot to just get into the NCAA tournament, it’s quite the achievement to have been here, but the missed opportunities to close this one out were plentiful.
Regardless, these two delivered perhaps the first true March classic of the tournament. You’re rarely out of a game in March, and Texas Tech’s furious late rally serves as yet another reminder to, even in a chalky Big Dance, expect the unexpected.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Darrion Williams Spurs Texas Tech’s Comeback in OT Win Over Arkansas .