SAN FRANCISCO — Darrion Williams grew up in Sacramento before moving to Las Vegas. Asked if there was an increase in the usual amount of ticket requests for a Sweet 16 game against Arkansas, the Texas Tech wing answered affirmatively and with a smile. And now the list might get longer for Saturday night.
Williams hit a 3-pointer to cap a massive comeback in regulation and then backed his way into a game-winner at the rim with seven seconds left in overtime, sending the Red Raiders to an 85-83 win over the Razorbacks and into an Elite Eight matchup with No. 1 seed Florida.
“The heart of this team is Darrion Williams,” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “He’s just a resilient guy. I mean, I can’t even explain it. I put faith in him because I do believe he’ll find a way.”
Texas Tech trailed by as many as 16 points and was down 13 with four and a half minutes to play. It appeared as though John Calipari would storm back into an Elite Eight for the first time in six years, after an ugly divorce with Kentucky and a move 700 miles west to Fayetteville. It appeared the SEC would guarantee itself a Final Four participant with a matchup of two of its record 14 NCAA Tournament entrants at the Chase Center on Saturday.
D5. CLUTCH. AGAIN!
THE SECOND LARGEST COMEBACK EVER IN THE SWEET 16!#TTW | 📺 TBS pic.twitter.com/zndRzXTUQt
— Texas Tech Basketball (@TexasTechMBB) March 28, 2025
Instead, Arkansas put the ball in the hands of sophomore D.J. Wagner for three of the biggest shots of the game, despite getting 30 points from Johnell Davis and 20 from Karter Knox on the night. Wagner missed a potential game-winner at the end of regulation, tied it before Williams’ heroics in overtime and then came up short on a jumper as time expired.
“In my career, I let that go,” Calipari said, when asked if he thought about calling a timeout to set up a shot. “Let the guy get to the rim. … Because it ended the way it did, yeah, I wish I would’ve called a timeout. But 99 percent of the time, I let it go. It was what we wanted.”
It was, to be polite, not the best offensive night for Texas Tech or Williams, its 6-foot-6 junior hero, on the whole. The team’s second-leading scorer missed his first four shots and wound up shooting just 8-for-26 overall. The team hit just 41 percent from the game. But that included a 5-for-6 showing in overtime, which was just enough to nudge past the Razorbacks.
“Coach kept saying, go through their chest,” Williams said. “And like he said, I’m going to make them when it matters.”
Down 13 points with four and a half minutes left to play, the Red Raiders were left with only slivers of a chance by the metrics. When freshman Christian Anderson drained a 3-pointer with 2:06 to play, Texas Tech had gone on a 10-0 run, cut the deficit to three and goaded Arkansas into a timeout to discuss how not to blow what seemed like a fait accompli.
“I’d seen Arkansas enough to know they were pretty volatile, in the way the game goes,” … said. “I was just like, ‘I’ve seen this team let people in. This is what we want. We want them to get to a big lead and we’ll find a way.’”
The suddenly stagnant Arkansas offense found its answer where it had all night: beyond the arc. A Knox corner 3-pointer beat the shot clock and built the lead back to six. But Anderson then drained another 3-pointer to answer with a little more than a minute remaining, and once again, Texas Tech forced Arkansas into a late shot-clock look.
This time, Trevon Brazile bricked a look from long range. But another 3-pointer from Anderson came up short down the other end. Jonas Aidoo then missed the front end of a one-and-one, and when the clock didn’t begin to roll on the rebound, it afforded Texas Tech a free timeout to draw up a set with 24.6 seconds left, trailing 72-69.
Nothing worked, and the ball found its way into Williams’ hands. He hoisted from deep and made just his second 3-pointer in 10 attempts to tie the game at 72-72 with 9.7 seconds left in regulation. Instead of getting the ball into either the hands of Davis or Knox, Calipari let Wagner pick up steam and drive for a decisive score. The former five-star recruit’s off-balance floater didn’t fall, extending the night by at least five minutes.
Arkansas and Texas Tech effectively traded scores or stops for the first two and a half minutes of overtime. Davis was then swatted on a drive to the rim and Toppin followed with a score in the paint to nudge Texas Tech ahead 81-78 with 1:41 left.
No one could catch their breath, still. Brazile stepped into a top-of-key 3-pointer out of a timeout to tie it at 81-81. Toppin answered with a hook in the lane. Wagner made an impossible shot in the lane. Williams then backed down toward the rim and effectively willed a shot to go down. When Wagner’s jumper at the horn came up short, it was Texas Tech — not Arkansas — ending an Elite Eight absence a half a dozen years long and doing so with the second-biggest comeback ever in a Sweet 16 game.
“In the huddle, Coach kept saying, ‘We’re going to find a way to win this,’” Anderson said. “As a team, we had that look, that we’re not losing this game no matter what. We had to find a way to make it happen. And at the end, we did.”
(Photo of Darrion Williams: Eakin Howard / Imagn Images)
