SAN JOSE, Calif. — Darius Acuff gave it everything he had.
The SEC Player of the Year and projected NBA lottery pick poured in 28 points Thursday night at SAP Center. Meleek Thomas added 17.
Billy Richmond chipped in 13 before getting thrown out of the game late. And none of it mattered one bit.
Arizona was simply on another level.
The top-seeded Wildcats rolled past fourth-seeded Arkansas 109-88 in the Sweet 16, sending the Hogs home for the second consecutive March. It’s the kind of loss that stings not just because of the defeat but because of how one-sided it was from the very first possession.
Eighteen seconds into the game, Arizona had the lead. It never gave it back.
For a Razorbacks squad that’d won seven straight games heading into San Jose and finished 28-9 — a record that tied for the program’s best since the 1994-95 national runner-up team went 32-7 — this wasn’t the ending anyone in Fayetteville had in mind.
Paint points told whole story
If you want to understand how Thursday night unfolded, start in the paint.
Arizona came in averaging 42 paint points per game. Against the Hogs, the Wildcats had 15 layups and seven dunks and outscored Arkansas 60-50 in the lane. That’s not a team getting lucky. That’s a team doing exactly what it wanted, exactly when it wanted to do it.
Six Arizona players finished with at least 14 points. Brayden Burries led the way with 23, including an and-1 conversion that put the Wildcats up 65-47 early in the second half. Jaden Bradley’s layup and another Burries 3-pointer later fueled a 9-2 run that stretched Arizona’s lead to 78-57 with 13:19 remaining.
After that, it was over in every way but the clock.
The final margin of 109-88 tied for the sixth-most lopsided loss in Arkansas Tournament history and set a new record for most points ever allowed by the Razorbacks in the postseason. The previous mark was 108 — set by North Carolina in a 2008 second-round game.
Arkansas never found footing
The Hogs didn’t help themselves early, and Arizona made them pay for every mistake.
By the second media timeout of the first half, the Wildcats had sprinted to a 26-15 lead while shooting 77% from the field. Tobe Awaka’s dunk pushed it to 46-31 with 3:46 left in the half.
Arkansas found a little offensive rhythm over those final few minutes but couldn’t get stops, and Arizona went into halftime ahead 54-43.
The Razorbacks weren’t going to get a soft start to the second half either. Arizona opened with an 11-4 run and the gap only grew from there.
The closest Arkansas got after the midpoint was 14 points — on Acuff free throws with 15:18 to play — before the Wildcats responded with that decisive 9-2 push.
The Hogs never got within 17 points again. Arizona led by as many as 25 before it was done.
Chaotic finish made rough night rougher
As the second half wore on and the outcome became clear, things got messy on the Arkansas side.
Fouls dominated the final stretch, with Arizona holding a 25-16 edge in calls.
Trevon Brazile drew a Flagrant 1 on an offensive rebound attempt. Zvonimir Pringle — who’d returned from a hamstring injury after missing the Hogs’ first two Tournament games — played 18 minutes, scored 6 points and fouled out with seven minutes left.
He also picked up a technical for bouncing the ball hard after a foul call.
Richmond’s night ended even earlier with a Flagrant 2 ejection on what looked like a flop by Arizona’s Ivan Kharchenkov.
Coach John Calipari drew the game’s final technical with 5:38 remaining for something said from the bench. He didn’t say another word to the officials for the rest of the night.
End of an era for Acuff
If Thursday was indeed Acuff’s last college game — and given his NBA Draft trajectory, it almost certainly was — he didn’t go quietly.
His 28 points were a reminder of what made him the SEC’s best player this season. But even that performance couldn’t change what this night was.
Arkansas fought through a special season, won seven straight to close the regular year and gave its fans plenty of reasons to feel good about where this program’s headed.
But Arizona was a different animal Thursday — deeper, more physical and more locked in than anything the Hogs had faced all year.
The Wildcats move on to face Purdue in the Elite Eight on Saturday at 7:49 p.m. Central on TBS with a Final Four berth waiting for the winner.
The Razorbacks move on too. Just not in the direction they wanted.
