HawgBeat - Hogs looking to clean things up in regular season finale
Arkansas will look to end the regular season on a high note against the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday.
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Spirits were down for the Arkansas Razorbacks (19-11, 8-9) following an 18-point loss to No. 11 Tennessee on Tuesday, but they will be looking to finish the regular season on a high note with a win over No. 23 Kentucky at Bud Walton Arena on Saturday.
The loss to the Volunteers was arguably the team's worst of the season, and forward Kamani Johnson said Thursday that it resulted in a "really, really, really, really long" film session with the coaches on Wednesday.
"Nobody in this locker room wants to lose, so everybody has been kind of vocal talking to each other," Johnson said. "The staff has been really vocal about it. I promise you our film sessions was very long yesterday. So as a team we took accountability for it, and it’s March now. So you can’t really harp on things like that. We’ve got to win and move on."
As easy as it is to say the team needs to get better moving forward, they have to prove it on the court. Head coach Eric Musselman said it best after the loss Tuesday, the Hogs were out-physicalled and that showed as they were out-scored by 24 points in the paint.
While their metrics haven't seen much of a drop after two-straight losses — both Quad 1 road losses at No. 2 Alabama and No. 11 Tennessee — the Razorbacks are still searching for a team identity that they can lean on when it matters most.
"We’re still experimenting with plays and different ways to get different players involved from an offensive standpoint," Musselman said. "Defensively we’ve been pretty steady all year with our scheme and how we’re going to do things from a defensive standpoint."
Though it ranks 11th in the nation in defensive efficiency, Arkansas seems to have taken a step back with its protection in the paint and specifically inside the 3-point line. Tennessee shot 60.5% from two and Alabama shot 61.9% from inside the arc — both percentages are the No. 2 and No. 1, respectively, of any SEC opponent for the Hogs this season.
"You look at our blocked shots and how we have, for the duration of the season, been a team that’s done a great job of protecting the lane," Musselman said. "We would have liked to have gotten better the last two games, so we’ve got to improve that area, certainly, against Kentucky."
Along with game play improvement, Arkansas is still needing more leadership. Junior Davonte Davis and Johnson, who will be recognized on senior night Saturday, have been leaders throughout the season and freshmen Anthony Black and Nick Smith Jr. have also grown as leaders of late.
"I think that’s an area we want to continue to grow in even though we only have 40 minutes of regular-season basketball to play," Musselman said. "That’s another area to continue to grow in. I think those have been the guys that have tried to lead us in different ways at different times of the year."
Despite beating Kentucky in convincing fashion with an 88-73 win at Rupp Arena on Feb. 7, this game presents a new opportunity for Arkansas to "get right" going into postseason play.
"Every game’s got its own theme, so it doesn’t really matter what happened in Lexington," Musselman said. "Certainly we’ve looked at the film on things that we did well and certainly things we want to get better at in that particular game and I know that Coach Calipari and his staff are looking at different things that they can do to get all of their… We all want to get our best players as many good shots as we can."
The Razorbacks and Wildcats will tipoff at 1 p.m. CT Saturday inside Bud Walton Arena, and the game will be broadcast on CBS.
