photo by: AP Photo/Steven Senne

High Point guard Bobby Pettiford, center, drives to the basket against Purdue during the first half in the first round of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, March 20, 2025, in Providence, R.I.

Providence, R.I. — Before it was Kansas’ turn to take the floor at Amica Mutual Pavilion on Thursday night for its NCAA Tournament matchup against Arkansas, a former Jayhawk had already sealed his first-round fate on the same court.

Senior guard Bobby Pettiford, who played a pair of seasons for KU, including on the Jayhawks’ national-title team in 2021-22, before transferring to East Carolina, established himself as a key rotational piece providing scoring off the bench on this year’s High Point Panthers.

High Point, a No. 13 seed also assigned to play in Providence, won the Big South Conference tournament in order to earn its first-ever berth in March Madness, and Pettiford was named the tournament MVP after scoring a team-high 17 points in the title game against Winthrop.

However, his late-career run came to an end on Thursday afternoon against No. 4 Purdue, which took down the Panthers 75-63 by outrebounding them 45-24 and limiting them to four points in a seven-minute stretch after they got within three points in the second half.

Pettiford finished the game with five points, five rebounds and three assists in the last action of his collegiate career.

Originally from Durham, North Carolina and playing for a team close to home an hour away in High Point, he embraced the “dream” of taking part in the NCAA Tournament for the third time in his career — twice at KU before his junior season at ECU.

“Some of us teammates have been at this level, the energy is unmatched here,” he said on Wednesday, joined on the podium by former Texas Tech guard D’Maurian Williams. “You can calm down, take some time to think. Take it all in, enjoy it and know it’s a business trip, as well.”

Reunion

Two years and two days before Thursday night’s matchup, KU and Arkansas had met in a different NCAA Tournament with teams that bore virtually no resemblance to those that took the court in Providence.

In Des Moines, Iowa, Eric Musselman’s Razorbacks stunned the top-seeded Jayhawks 72-71 in the second round of the 2023 tournament.

On Thursday, KU fielded just three of the same players it had two years ago, while Arkansas, which has since experienced a seismic coaching change from Musselman to John Calipari, preserved just one: junior forward Trevon Brazile, who was out with a torn ACL for much of the 2022-23 season.

“I think the main memory is probably coach Musselman taking his shirt off after the game,” Brazile told the Journal-World on Wednesday. “It was a big win. I remember we kind of had control of the game the whole time kind of and then they came back at the end. We ended up winning and then yeah, Muss took his shirt off at the end.”

Indeed, Musselman jumped on a media table and ripped off his shirt, something he had been known to do during his previous time at Nevada. Arkansas lost to UConn in the Sweet 16, a year later Musselman was gone for USC, and Brazile remained as the only holdover into Calipari’s era.

“You know, it’s been an adjustment just because all Coach Cal’s staff, they were kind of all familiar with each other,” he said. “Me just being an Arkansas guy, it was an adjustment, but I feel like it’s working out pretty well.”

Even with the minimal similarities to the 2023 matchup, point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. — one of the three consistent KU players, along with forwards KJ Adams and Zach Clemence — embraced the idea of attempting to avenge that defeat.

“We lost to them two years ago, and this is basically like a revenge game for me and KJ,” he said on Wednesday. “We want this game back. It’s going to be really exciting to play.”

Ocean State memories

Thursday night’s game is the farthest east KU has ever played in the NCAA Tournament, and the only time the Jayhawks have visited the Northeast in the postseason at all outside of some trips to the NIT under Ted Owens in 1968 and 1969, still KU’s only appearances in that competition.

However, the state of Rhode Island was not new to KU coach Bill Self, who visited the University of Rhode Island in Kingston with his Tulsa team in 1999 for a game that the Golden Hurricane won 91-66 after, as Self recalled accurately in a recent press conference, scoring the first 15 points. That team of Self’s eventually earned a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Elite Eight.

Calipari also had some famous history of his own in Providence, where his 1996 UMass team started its run to the Final Four with a pair of victories at what is now Amica Mutual Pavilion.

“Italian city,” he said on Wednesday, asked about his reaction to getting assigned to Providence again, and elaborated on his team’s variety of Italian experiences: “We already went out to Federal Hill, went under The Pineapple (actually a pine cone, a sculpture hanging at the center of Providence’s Italian neighborhood). Let’s go. Had a nice meal last night. Last time we came here it was a lot of fun.”