When John Calipari was hired to lead the Arkansas basketball team, he had the unorthodox idea to bring just nine rotational players onto the team in his first year.
That decision has backfired to this point, with injuries to key players leading to fatigue and a lack of chemistry on the roster. Arkansas is now 11-7 overall on the season and winless through the first five games of Southeastern Conference play.
"I think John probably made a mistake only having nine guys on scholarship," ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg said on The Chuck and Bo Show on Tuesday. "I understand exactly why he did it and it makes common sense in the world of the portal and trying to develop team chemistry. You want guys that are part of the solution and feel like they're involved, but guys are playing so much year-round and I think guys get beat up a little bit."
The injury bug has been prevalent throughout the program in the last three months. Forward Jonas Aidoo missed almost the entire preseason with a foot injury. Guard Johnell Davis' wrist has hampered him immensely, and now freshman point guard Boogie Fland is dealing with a hand injury that will likely sideline him for at least Wednesday's game against Georgia.
Arkansas associate head coach Chin Coleman said Tuesday the plan is to use a committee of players to fill the void left by Fland.
"Obviously it’s natural for D.J. (Wagner) to move into that role," Coleman said. "He’s done it his whole life. He’s done it in his career. So it’s an easy fix for him just moving to that role. But committee wise, Johnell will have to take some of that responsibility, and Billy Richmond, who has played that position some in high school. It’s different obviously on this level. But he has played the position so we’re going to ask for him to take some of that."
The shortened rotation makes sense in a vacuum. In a perfect world, a basketball team really only needs nine players. But in the real world, injuries happen. On top of that, with less players on the roster, it requires those players to live up to the hype more often than not.
"We’ve got nine guys and if Boogie is out for a while we may have eight guys," Calipari said after the loss to Missouri. "Well, guess what those eight guys got to do? Play well. All of them. You can’t have four of the eight and get it done."
Where the nine-man rotation seems to have hurt Arkansas the most is in the performances of some of the guys it brought in. Injury aside, Davis' wrist is all good, according to him. But he still hasn't made as big of an impact as was expected in the preseason, as he's averaging just 8.3 points per game on 40.9% shooting and he turns the ball over 1.7 times per game.
"For (the SEC), he's a little bit of an undersized small forward, and that impacts him defensively, rebounding the basketball," Greenberg said. "Johnell's got to try to be more aggressive, but it's hard to be more aggressive when you're playing against the athletes (in the SEC). There's a big difference in the athletes in the American Conference and, especially this year, in the SEC."
That said, with Fland likely out with that hand injury, there's an opportunity for Davis to show his worth. He's averaging 28.4 minutes per game, but he could see himself thrust in a larger role with the Hogs' point guard out.
"What you say is, there's 15 shots to spread around," Calipari said on his radio show Monday. "Who needs maybe three or four more shots of those 15 to get going? Nelly. He's used to taking 17, 18 shots. When you're taking eight, nine or seven, it's a lot harder. So we need to get him more shots."
Even through the Hogs' struggles this season, though, Greenberg said he isn't selling his Calipari stock.
"You don't win National Championships or go to Final Four without knowing what you're doing," Greenberg said. "This is an anomaly, this is out of character for one of his teams. Being that he's done this for about 35 years, I'd say the odds are in Arkansas' favor."
