2021-22 Season in Review: Au'Diese Toney
HawgBeat continues its season-in-review series with a closer look at Au'Diese Toney's lone season at Arkansas.
After three seasons as a major contributor for a losing team, Au’Diese Toney opted to leave Pitt and join a winning program.
He found that in Arkansas, becoming the Razorbacks’ first transfer addition last offseason. He committed April 1, picking the Hogs over Arizona, Xavier, Cincinnati, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and others.
During his time with the Panthers, Toney made 69 starts in 79 appearances and averaged 9.7 points and 5.4 rebounds. His final season at Pitt was his best, though, as the 6-foot-6 wing averaged 14.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.3 steals while shooting 46.4% from the field.
His size and versatility, along with his defensive prowess, made him a hot commodity on the transfer market and was ultimately a benefit to the Razorbacks. Toney came in right away and started for Arkansas.
In his UA debut, Toney impressed — scoring 18 points and hauling in 11 rebounds while shooting 77.8% from the field. This performance had fans expecting Toney to be another offensive weapon to go along with JD Notae, Stanley Umude and Chris Lykes. That thinking lasted through the first eight games of the season.
Over that stretch, Toney averaged 14.0 points and 6.8 rebounds while shooting 69.0% from the field. He was easily the most efficient offensive weapon the Razorbacks had, and drew praise from head coach Eric Musselman for his ability to find ways to score.
Multiple times throughout the season, Musselman said that Toney scored without even having a play drawn for him, including the very first game of the season.
“I thought Au’Diese Toney was off the charts,” Musselman said after the season opener against Mercer. “We did not run one play for him and he scored 18 points in the most efficient way you possibly can. He was phenomenal.”
Things sort of changed after that, though. Games 9-16 saw Toney’s production drop drastically, as he scored in double digits just once in those next eight games. He lost his starting spot for three of those games, as the Arkansas coaching staff searched for answers after back-to-back losses to Oklahoma and Hofstra.
During Toney’s rough stretch, the team was just 3-5 and started conference 0-3. The senior averaged just 7.3 points and 5.0 rebounds in that span, but even that is kind of inflated due to his 20-point performance against Vanderbilt. In the other seven games, Toney averaged a mere 5.4 points.
After the Vanderbilt game, Toney was inserted back into the starting lineup and began to get back to the player fans and coaches saw at the beginning of the season. The turning point of the Razorbacks’ season also functioned as the rebirth of Toney’s season in a road win at LSU.
Arkansas secured a much-needed road victory and Toney produced for an entire game. In the win, he scored 12 points and hauled in four rebounds on 50% shooting. He played 39 minutes in that game, mainly because of his incredible defensive performance.
Early in the year, Toney was a good defender, but he was producing so much offensively that it wasn’t the focus of his game. With the initial starting lineup of the season slotting Toney as more of a 3-guard, he wasn’t always asked to defend opponents’ best guards with the team having two other guards on the floor.
Switching the lineup after Notae came back healthy from COVID-19 immensely helped the team and helped Toney. Musselman slid Toney to the 2-spot, with Umude primarily playing the 3, giving the Razorbacks much more size and length on the perimeter.
As a result, Toney was tasked with being the Razorbacks’ go-to defender on any number of guards on the opposing team, more often than not their top threat. Most of the time, Toney not only held his assignment below their season averages, but even took them completely out of the game.
Toney carved out his role as an elite primary defender and able scorer on the other end of the floor, as well as being one of the best slashers in college basketball. Over his final 14 regular-season appearances, starting with the LSU win, Toney averaged 10.1 points and 5.0 rebounds in 35.1 minutes, plus shot 43.1% from the field and 83.9% from the free throw line.
In that span, Arkansas went 13-1, the lone loss coming on the road at Alabama when the Hogs lost by just one point. Included in the 13 wins were victories over No. 12 LSU on the road, No. 1 Auburn, No. 13 Tennessee and No. 6 Kentucky.
The Razorbacks looked almost unstoppable at that point of the season and built a strong resume going into the NCAA Tournament, but Toney hurt his ankle in the second LSU matchup and was held out of the regular-season finale at Tennessee.
Arkansas looked lost without Toney defensively, as the Volunteers got almost any look they wanted in the first half. The Razorbacks trailed by 21 at halftime and by as much as 23 right out of the gate the second half before mounting an incredible comeback. They eventually lost to Tennessee 78-74 without Toney.
In that matchup, star Tennessee guard Santiago Vescovi scored 15 points on 3 of 4 shooting from behind the arc with 4 rebounds and 4 assists. Toney drew the primary assignment on Vescovi in the first matchup, holding him to just seven points and an assist on 2 of 13 shooting and 1 of 9 from three.
There were concerns about when Toney would be able to return, but the Tennessee game ended up being the only game he missed.
In the conference tournament and NCAA Tournament, Toney maintained his high level of play from before his injury, and even increased his shooting percentages through the final six games. His defense didn’t miss a beat, either, as he was still effective against opposing teams’ best offensive guard threats, most notably against New Mexico State and Gonzaga.
Against the Aggies, Toney was tasked with guarding WAC Player of the Year Teddy Allen. Nicknamed “Teddy Buckets” because of his prolific scoring ability, Allen was coming off an incredible 37-point effort in an upset win over UConn. It wasn’t as easy against Arkansas.
Allen managed just 12 points on 5 of 16 shooting and that total was inflated by some late scoring. There was a stretch of nearly 15 minutes in the middle of the game when Toney prevented him from even taking a shot — and the shots he did get off were heavily contested.
“Au'Diese Toney, the way that he played individually tonight was as good as any defender that I've ever coached,” Musselman said after the game.
In the Sweet 16, Toney guarded Gonzaga star Andrew Nembhard and held him to 7 points and 3 assists with 5 turnovers while shooting an abysmal 2 of 11 from the field. Silencing Nembhard was crucial in Arkansas beating the Bulldogs and becoming the first team to hold wins over an AP No. 1 team in the regular season and NCAA Tournament in the same season.
The season ended the next game with a loss to Duke, in which Toney struggled with foul trouble while scoring only 4 points.
Even though he played four years of college basketball, the Huntsville, Ala., native had an extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic-related relief granted by the NCAA. Many Arkansas fans and media alike expected Toney to return, expand his offensive game and try to earn a spot in the NBA Draft the following year. Ultimately, he decided to sign an agent and begin his professional career.
In just one year at Arkansas, Toney became a fan favorite and earned the reputation as one of the best defenders the program has ever seen, with some fans mentioning him alongside likes of Darrell Walker, Sidney Moncrief, Alvin Robertson and others.
That legacy was cemented in his lone year with the Razorbacks, though with him foregoing his last year of college basketball, he could become one of the bigger “what ifs” for a program that has a running list of them.
2021-22 Season in Review Series
JD Notae
Au'Diese Toney
Stanley Umude (coming soon)
