Men @ Arkansas

[AUinMS9528 1,086]

I can see this game going a couple of different ways:

Arky is hot!  We’ve played terrible our last couple of road games.  Their Jaylin Williams is a much better big man than anyone we’ve played since Oscar from UK.   And I’m not sure how healthy Zep will be.  

On the other hand, we’ve played up or down to our opponents and we’ll need a very good game to beat Arky at their place, so maybe we’ll show up and show out!   And we’ve responded well after lackluster performances so far.   

This one makes me nervous.    What do y’all think?   

[GTNupe11 2,038]

I haven't had a chance to watch the hogs play this year. I think if we get Zep back we will be in good shape. Wendell cannot play 30+ minutes. Not with the way we want to play defense. Bruce admitted we probably should have gone zone much earlier than what we did yesterday. Hopefully from a coaching standpoint there is more emphasis on in-game adjustments and getting Walker and Jabari more involved. I think if we do that, we will win. 

[stealthyfan 124]

Georgia let down was the only time the team looked a bit frazzled this year. The roster won out with too much talent. 

[AUBwins 10,107]

I'm not worried about Arky because as some have said, IF we lose one that's the one to lose. 

[Viper 3,139]

Team looked really tired towards the end. 3 days rest for a big road game after this rough road game is going to be ultra difficult, esp if Jasper is out again. Pearl said he may not practice his guys.

The team resorts to too many 3's on the road. Have to get Jabari & Walker more involved down low to survive these road games and more importantly, tourney time.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,817]

I watched like a half of Arky last time they played Ole Miss. That Jaylin dude is the truth. Guy should be a real contender for SEC POTY if he was on a more popular team 

[81spacetiger 157]

If our D can show up for 40 min, I really like our chance to win on the road.  On O, we need to get some passes in the game and have 5 guys outscore the other team vs 2.5 players.

If we play like we did with UGA or MIZ on the road to a better team (Ark) we could drop this game.  

[MaxCohen216 514]

3 hours ago, AUBwins said:

I'm not worried about Arky because as some have said, IF we lose one that's the one to lose. 

Yes.

I've heard many respected sports figures say "there is no such thing as a good loss".  But I disagree.  Competitive losses against good teams can be excellent learning opportunities.  And a good jolt would do our team good, I think.  And if it must come, on the road at Arky wouldn't be devastating.  Just eye-opening.  And I'd feel sorry for our next opponent.

[GwillMac6 20,791]

3 hours ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

I watched like a half of Arky last time they played Ole Miss. That Jaylin dude is the truth. Guy should be a real contender for SEC POTY if he was on a more popular team 

I really thought for a time we were getting both him and Chris Moore. They are really close. But he chose the home state school. Even though he was a top 100 4 star I never ever thought he would be this good. Of course BP KNEW!

[GwillMac6 20,791]

This is def our toughest regular season game left. At least on paper.  Arkansas is EN FUEGO right now and Bud Walton Arena with its 20k seats will be sold out and be absolutely BONKERS tuesday night. It is going to be a enormous task on short rest with our guys looking gassed at the end of the Georgia game saturday. Just like in the magical 99 season I think we get run at Arkansas. 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,817]

1 hour ago, GwillMac6 said:

I really thought for a time we were getting both him and Chris Moore. They are really close. But he chose the home state school. Even though he was a top 100 4 star I never ever thought he would be this good. Of course BP KNEW!

Wonder if we can go back and get an exchange 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,817]

Jaylin Williams, Jaylin Williams and Jabari Smith would be the best PF stable I've seen 

[Cardin Drake 1,892]

9 hours ago, MaxCohen216 said:

Yes.

I've heard many respected sports figures say "there is no such thing as a good loss".  But I disagree.  Competitive losses against good teams can be excellent learning opportunities.  And a good jolt would do our team good, I think.  And if it must come, on the road at Arky wouldn't be devastating.  Just eye-opening.  And I'd feel sorry for our next opponent.

Nope, I'll never feel sorry for the aggies..

[WalkingCarpet 1,379]

Honestly I don't feel good about this one. We need Zep back bad or we're going to be out of gas with ten minutes left. Just looking at some stats it seems Arkansas does a lot of the things we do. They're good from 2, rebound and get to the line well, but they only shoot about 30% from 3. We have not looked good in our last two road games against overmatched opponents and we're going to get everyone's best shot with our ranking. 

[einatlanta 502]

This team is definitely special. BP pointed out in the post game interview how mentally and physically exhausted the team was from the past 1-2 week schedule. It looked scary for a minute in the game when we could not buy a bucket, Jab had a bit of a cold streak and with Kes in foul trouble but to see the team rally each other to the finish is the 'it' factor for this group. Win or lose, there is no quit in this team!! Arkansas will be a grind but we definitely have the capability for a solid win.

[AUlurker 178]

Arkansas struggled on offense against Mississippi State. So i expect them to shoot 80% in the first 8 minutes.

[dmbseeker00 119]

16 minutes ago, AUlurker said:

Arkansas struggled on offense against Mississippi State. So i expect them to shoot 80% in the first 8 minutes.

Yeah, probably right. Once again, they were left out of the top 25 AP poll that was just released...so they are going to come out, trying to prove a point. I don't doubt they will be on fire. We will have to play our best game of the season, to win at their house. 

[gohogs14 178]

13 hours ago, GwillMac6 said:

I really thought for a time we were getting both him and Chris Moore. They are really close. But he chose the home state school. Even though he was a top 100 4 star I never ever thought he would be this good. Of course BP KNEW!

Jaylin actually faced off against Kessler in high school in a tournament. Kessler was named tournament MVP but Williams had 33 points in their matchup so it was a great back-and-forth.

I'm sure he didn't think they'd be playing against each other again so soon haha.

Edited February 7, 2022 by gohogs14

[CT Tiger 136]

18 hours ago, AUBwins said:

I'm not worried about Arky because as some have said, IF we lose one that's the one to lose. 

Agreed. IMO the other most dangerous games are @UF, @TENN, and @MSU. Although it's a home game and The Jungle will be rockin', aTm this Saturday could be a dogfight too. 

[AUinMS9528 1,086]

33 minutes ago, CT Tiger said:

IMO the other most dangerous games are @UF, @TENN, and @MSU.

These are the 4 games, including tomorrow @ Arky, that I saw as our toughest remaining games.   I’m gonna say we split those four and finish the league 16-2 which is ridiculously good!!!!   UK will drop at least one more so we won’t even need the tiebreaker!

[dilligas 581]

This game and at Tennessee are the two I’m most concerned about.  Would take a split in a heartbeat.

[tgrogan21 6,198]

1 hour ago, CT Tiger said:

Agreed. IMO the other most dangerous games are @UF, @TENN, and @MSU. Although it's a home game and The Jungle will be rockin', aTm this Saturday could be a dogfight too. 

I'm really not that concerned about Tennessee to be honest. They don't match up really well with our bigs and they're best big just went down with a season ending injury. I fully expect another year where TN can't beat Pearl and Auburn.

I think @Arky is the hardest by far and if we win tomorrow we have a real shot of winning out the rest of the season.

[GwillMac6 20,791]

37 minutes ago, AUinMS9528 said:

These are the 4 games, including tomorrow @ Arky, that I saw as our toughest remaining games.   I’m gonna say we split those four and finish the league 16-2 which is ridiculously good!!!!   UK will drop at least one more so we won’t even need the tiebreaker!

There is no tiebreaker in basketball. If we tie with Kentucky the only thing that head to head would get us is the 1 seed in the conference tourney. Unfortunately we would share the league conference regular season title like we did with Rocky Top in 17/18 even though we beat them in the head to head. I will gladly take that because we still get to cut down the nets and get rings and hang a banner. I really am worried Kentucky will win out the rest of the regular season. They have been playing absolutely lights out lately.

[WalkingCarpet 1,379]

3 minutes ago, GwillMac6 said:

There is no tiebreaker in basketball. If we tie with Kentucky the only thing that head to head would get us is the 1 seed in the conference tourney. Unfortunately we would share the league conference regular season title like we did with Rocky Top in 17/18 even though we beat them in the head to head. I will gladly take that because we still get to cut down the nets and get rings and hang a banner. I really am worried Kentucky will win out the rest of the regular season. They have been playing absolutely lights out lately.

I'd say 50% chance UK wins out. They've got some tricky games left @Tennessee, @Arkansas, @Florida, and another tilt against the bammers. I doubt they're going to shoot 10% from three again. If they do I'm going to laugh my ass off. 

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

• Areas of concern:     
  • free throws/foul trouble - they shoot 23 per game (7th best in country) we allow 19.5 per (200th+) This game being at their house and them attacking Kessler and Smith inside, this is an area of concern to watch how our bigs handle it. 
  • Offensive rebounding/shot selection- they do a good job of offensive rebounding but do an excellent job or not allowing offensive rebounding, which means our shot selection will be more important in this game than most. Getting Jabari touches will be extremely important vs early questionable shots. I don't want to see our guards lose their edge, but I do want the best player in America to take more shots. 
• Areas of strength
  • turnovers/blocks - we turn it over less, steal it more, and block more than they do by a several percentage points. They commit a turnover or get blocked on 20+% of their possessions. That could play into our favor and help create easy buckets in transition.

It goes without saying we lead them in most categories as we are the better team, but I think these will be areas to watch during the game. One other interest trend this season to keep an eye on. In every game after being held to single digit scoring Jabari as scored 20+ pts the next game. It has happened three times already, lets see if he makes it four this week. 

 

I think our guys will respond. CBP will have a better guard rotation in mind if Zep can't go. Maybe see Flan get some minutes at the two to give KD and Wen a breather.