John Calipari is heading to the Sweet 16 for the 16th time, and this one could be the sweetest of all.

Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks beat longtime nemesis Rick Pitino and No. 2 seed St. John’s 75-66 on Saturday, sending their itinerant coach to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament with his fourth school.

Billy Richmond III scored 16 points and Karter Knox had 15 for the 10th-seeded Razorbacks, who sent Kansas and their Hall of Fame coach Bill Self home from the “Region of Coaches” in the first round.

But the victory over his longtime rival was especially sweet for Calipari, who brought the Razorbacks (22-13) back to the tournament in his first season in Fayetteville despite early-season injuries that left them 0-5 to start the Southeastern Conference schedule.

“I told them, ‘This is as rewarding as a year I’ve had, based on how far we’ve come,’” he said.

Zuby Ejiofor had 23 points and 12 rebounds for Big East champion St. John’s (31-5). Conference player of the year RJ Luis Jr. had nine points, half his season average, on 3-of-17 shooting.

“They outplayed us. They deserve to move on and we don’t,” Pitino said. “That’s what March Madness is all about. No matter how good a regular season you have, you play this way, you’re going to get beat.”

Pitino’s history in Providence — he took the Friars to the 1987 Final Four — gave him a home-court advantage as he arrived in March Madness with an unprecedented sixth school.

So many of those teams were built with a full-court defense and 3-point shooting.

St. John’s, which beat Omaha in the first round, had the No. 1 defense in the country this season to win the Big East, returning to the tournament for the first time since 2019 with a No. 2 seed that was its best in 25 years.

But the Red Storm’s shooting deserted them on Saturday and they became the first team seeded fourth or better to exit what’s been a chalky tournament so far.

“Rick did a good job with his team all year,” Calipari said. “If they made a few shots, they probably beat us. We were fortunate to get out.”

The teams combined to make four 3-pointers on 41 attempts, with St. John’s shooting 28% from the floor overall.

Auburn 82, Creighton 70 >> Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said a trip to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament was no sure thing, and experienced Creighton made his top-seeded team work for it before the Tigers found their defensive mojo in the second half and closed out the ninth-seeded Bluejays to reach the Sweet 16.

Tahaad Pettiford scored 16 of his 23 points after halftime and Chad Baker-Mazara added 17 points for Auburn, which held Creighton scoreless for more than six minutes during a 10-0 second-half run. Pettiford scored six points during that burst to push the Tigers to a 68-54 lead.

The No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, Auburn (30-5) moves on to the South Region semifinals in Atlanta next weekend, where it will face No. 5 seed Michigan. Pearl’s team was upset in the first round by Yale last year and he had not taken Auburn past the second round since it reached its only Final Four in 2019. This time, his goal is the Tigers’ first-ever national title.

Creighton under coach Greg McDermott had reached the Sweet 16 in three of the previous four years.

Purdue 76, McNeese 62 >> Trey Kaufman-Renn had 22 points and 15 rebounds, and Purdue used a fast start to roll to a win over McNeese in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Fletcher Loyer added 15 points. C.J. Cox finished with 11 points for the Boilermakers (24-11), who advanced through the Midwest Region to the Sweet 16 for the second straight season.

Purdue will meet the winner of top-seeded Houston and eighth-seeded Gonzaga in the regional semifinal. In his 16 NCAA Tournament appearances with the Boilermakers, coach Matt Painter is now headed to his eighth Sweet 16.

Painter said the challenge is to sustain the offensive output they’ve had over the first two rounds.

“We can’t go further without playing great offensively,” Painter said. “We have to execute well, we have to shoot the ball well. That’s not really pressure, that’s just a fact.”

Sincere Parker had 17 points to lead McNeese (28-7). Javohn Garcia added 12 points as the Cowboys came up short in their bid to give the Southland Conference its first Sweet 16 team since Louisiana Tech in 1985.

Michigan 91, Texas A&M 79 >> Michigan is going back to the Sweet 16 a year after a 24-loss season, using Roddy Gayle’s surge to beat Texas A&M.

Gayle scored 21 of his season-high 26 points in the second half to help the restocked Wolverines overcome a 10-point deficit and advance to Atlanta to face the Auburn-Creighton winner in the South Region.

Vladislav Goldin had 23 points and 12 rebounds as fifth-seeded Michigan (27-9) overcame another big day for Pharrel Payne, who led Texas A&M with 26 points on 10-of-13 shooting.

In two NCAA games at Ball Arena, Payne scored 51 points on 20-of-25 shooting and pulled down 15 rebounds.

The Wolverines, who made a surprising run to the Big Ten tournament title, won for the fifth time in nine days. The fourth-seeded Aggies (23-11) were playing for just the second time in nine days, but they were the ones who looked exhausted at elevation by game’s end.

The Aggies missed eight of their last nine shots and the Wolverines closed on a 9-0 run after two free throws by Zhuric Phelps pulled Texas A&M to 82-79 with 1:29 remaining.

Texas Tech 77, Drake 64 >> Darrion Williams scored a season-high 28 points, JT Toppin had 25 points and 12 rebounds, and No. 3 seed Texas Tech dominated No. 11 seed Drake in the paint on its way to a victory in the second round.

Elijah Hawkins added 16 points for the Red Raiders (27-8), who denied the Bulldogs their first Sweet 16 trip in more than five decades and will play No. 10 seed Arkansas in the West Region semifinals Thursday night in San Francisco.

Bennett Stirtz scored 21 points and Daniel Abreu had 15 for the Bulldogs (31-4), who were outscored 50-20 inside by the bigger, stronger Red Raiders, and had their eight-game winning streak come to an end.

Texas Tech beat UNC Wilmington in the first round with a 3-point barrage, setting a tournament record with 46 attempts. But with the Bulldogs blanketing the Red Raiders’ guards, McCasland chose to funnel the ball inside to Toppin, a second-team All-American, and Williams, who continued to play after he appeared to aggravate a right leg injury in the second half.