Hines: Arkansas strips Kansas of title defense hopes, gives Des Moines a show in NCAA Tournament
It had been a pretty nondescript start to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Wells Fargo Arena through the week’s first four games.
Then Eric Musselman was standing shirtless on a courtside table.
Things change in a hurry in the madness of March.
No. 8 Arkansas toppled the title defense of No. 1 Kansas with a thrilling 72-71 win that sent the Razorbacks coach over to his school’s cheering section with another NCAA Tournament victory and his own shirt in hand.
As the 5-foot-7 Musselman stood atop the courtside table topless, the Big Dance suddenly became Magic Muss XS.
Madness, indeed.
"Well, I would love to lie and say that I felt composed,” Musselman said of the moment. “It's really hard to make this tournament. It’s really hard to win a game in this tournament. It's really hard to beat defending champions, No. 1 seed.
“We did it, proud of us.”
For whatever drama and spectacle Thursday lacked in Des Moines, an absolute war of a game between the Jayhawks and Razorbacks gave us both with extra helpings.
Kansas looked like it might use its championship pedigree to bury Arkansas early in the second half when it went up 12 on a gorgeous scooping layup by Dajuan Harris, Jr. with 15 minutes to play.
Instead, Arkansas unleashed a 16-5 run to take the lead with under 9 minutes to play, and we should have had a bell to ring courtside because it was an absolute fight from there on out.
How intense did things get? Even the cheerleaders were getting heckled – and faux-threatened.
At the under-4 media timeout, there was an on-court competition between the schools’ cheerleading squads, with the aim for one cheerleader to keep another suspended over his head longer than his counterpart.
After the two groups battled to a stalemate for a while, a group in the Arkansas friends and family section started yelling for their cheerleader to push down Kansas’.
They were kidding. I think.
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The game’s final minute was no joke, though.
Kansas tied it with a pair of clutch free throws from Jalen Wilson with 39 seconds to play.
Arkansas went up one with a Ricky Council IV free throw, and then three when he missed the next but got his own rebound and went back to the line.
Wilson and Council again traded free throws until Wilson needed to intentionally miss one with Kansas down two with three seconds left.
Instead, Wilson unintentionally banked the shot in.
Repeat dreams dashed.
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It was somehow appropriate for the game to be decided at the free throw line as the teams were trading punches as much as they were baskets in a hugely physical and electric game.
“Feels unreal right now,” Davonte Davis, who scored 21 of his 25 points in the second half, said. “I don't know how to react, you know.
“But I know it does feel good.”
The game wasn’t a historic upset like No. 16 Farleigh Dickinson, led by Truro-raised Tobin Anderson, beating No. 1 Purdue. There wasn’t a buzzer-beater that will be played on CBS for decades.
But it was the type of game champions win. Arkansas may be an 8-seed, but the Razorbacks have been to back-to-back Elite 8s and have a pair of potential NBA Draft lottery picks in Anthony Black and Nick Smith Jr.
And now they’ve knocked off the champs.
Maybe Arkansas won’t be the one to cut down the nets in Houston in two weeks, but they looked like a team capable of doing it Saturday night.
“We will start prepping for that tomorrow night as a staff,” Musselman said, “and see what happens.
“But I know that the state of Arkansas is on fire right now.”
And for a couple of hours, so too, was the inside of Wells Fargo Arena, even if most of us kept our shirts on.
Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him at @TravisHines21.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Hines: Arkansas has the look of the real deal in Des Moines
