Like it or not, Texas Tech fans, the national spotlight was on Arkansas head coach John Calipari during Thursday's Sweet 16. So even though the Red Raiders prevailed 85-83 in overtime, people around the country are going to be talking about Calipari, who had yet another questionable coaching performance in the NCAA Tournament.
Sure, Calipari is one of the great coaches of his generation. He's won 874 college games, and he led Kentucky to the 2012 National Championship.
However, given all of the talent he's been able to recruit to his teams, it is shocking that he hasn't won another championship or two. In fact, he hasn't taken a team to the Final Four since 2015. Many believe that it is due to the fact that he's a great recruiter and motivator, but not a great strategic coach.
The notion that his in-game abilities are lacking was only strengthened by Thursday night's 16-point second-half collapse against the Red Raiders. It was the first time in 36 career NCAA Tournament games that Calipari had lost when holding a halftime lead of six points or more.
Following the game, a stunned Calipari met with the media, and he began by giving credit to the Red Raiders.
"Hard game," he said. "Two teams went at it. Slugfest. We're all disappointed here. But I told them, there's nothing them individually or my team could do to disappoint me because of what they've done this year. I'm so proud of them and proud of these two. But I'm proud of all the guys.
"Aidoo tried to play today. Boogie was still not there. But they all wanted to play to try to help their team.
"But give Texas Tech credit. They made plays down the stretch that gave them a chance, and they won the game."
The first mistake many people feel Calipari made was deciding not to foul the Red Raiders at the end of regulation with his team leading 72-69. Instead, he let his team play defense, and Darrion Williams drained a contested 3-pointer to send the game to overtime. After the game, Calipari explained his thinking on that possession.
"But when you talk about how we guarded them, pretty good," he said. "They're a good team. Field goal percentage, 3-point field goal percentage, our free-throw percentage, there was a lot of stuff -- it was one of our Achilles' heels, offensive rebounding against us.
"Last game it was 28 offensive rebounds. I thought TB down the stretch came up with rebounds. We miss a free throw that made it a 3-point game. Now you're, like, okay, it's 12 seconds. A little too early to foul. A kid that was 1-for-9 makes it. And it was contested.
"I mean, sometimes that stuff is stuff that happens in these games."
The other criticism people have of how Calipari managed the game was that he didn't call a timeout to draw up a play after Tech took a two-point lead in the last ten seconds of overtime. Instead, he again trusted his team to come up with a play, and again, it backfired.
"Yeah, but in my career, I let that go," he said, "let the guy get to the rim. They're not going to foul you. With that kind of time, just me, you call a timeout, now you've got to worry about what he's doing, how he's playing, the inbound, what are you doing.
"So I usually let that go. Now, because it ended the way it did, yeah, I wish I would have called a timeout. But 99 percent of the time, I let that go because now I know what they're doing, they know what we're doing. That's why we did it. The end of the half we wanted to go at one guy, and we did. He made a hard bump on D.J. that got him kind of off balance on the shot. But it was what we wanted."
There is no denying that the Calipari component of this game will loom large, especially from a national perspective. He's one of the legendary figures in the coaching world, and he has earned the spotlight through decades of building winning programs.
However, Calipari also has his faults, and how he manages game situations tends to be one. Thursday night, he stuck to his guns in two important instances, and both times, his gamble came up short. That's one huge reason why the Red Raiders are still dancing and Arkansas is headed home.