HawgBeat - Lingering issues plague Razorbacks in loss to UNCG
The Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team must improve on some key areas if its going to be competitive in the SEC.
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Coming off of an 86-77 win over Old Dominion that was anything but pretty, it was known that the No. 14 Arkansas Razorbacks (3-1) needed to fix some lingering issues if they were going to beat the UNC Greensboro Spartans (2-1) comfortably on Friday in Bud Walton Arena.
Well, the same issues that have plagued the Hogs up to this point were highlighted against the Spartans, who upset Arkansas by a score of 78-72.
What issues have been lingering for the Hogs? Well, let's just let Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman explain.
"We're not defending the three, and we're not guarding the dribble drive," Musselman said. "We've basically had the same defensive concepts for eight years and might have to look at changing some things based on our lack of ability to — especially the guard play — to keep the ball in front of us and also contest the three. That seems to be problematic to do both. Tonight we were supposed to take away the three, and we certainly didn't do that."
The Spartans shot 9-24 (37.5%) from beyond the arc against the Razorbacks, including five made threes by star-guard Keyshaun Langley. In the last two games against Old Dominion and UNC Greensboro, Arkansas has allowed a combined mark of 20-48 (41.7%) on three point shots.
"Not getting close enough to guys," Musselman said. "Not having enough desperation. If you don't think that we've talked about defending the three, I've talked about it with you guys. It's been discussed. It's up to us to fix it. So, we've got to get back to the drawing board, and we don't have much time before we play three real quality opponents in the Bahamas."
Defending the three wasn't the only obstacle the Hogs faced Friday. After committing just four total turnovers against Old Dominion earlier in the week, Arkansas gave the ball away 13 times against the Spartans.
"I mean, the second half we did a pretty good job of taking care of the ball, but first half not very good," Musselman said. "There's just so many things I can point out. I mean, (Makhi Mitchell) has four fouls in eight minutes or six minutes or whatever it was. El had a lot of turnovers in the first half. I thought their star player got off in the first half and got way too many easy looks.
"The issue when you schedule like this is if you don't come to play, good teams like this are going to beat you. They're a good team, and they played a great second half at Vanderbilt. They played a really good first half tonight, and we didn't play a good game at all."
Something that Musselman has harped on for the Razorbacks to improve is overall team-physicality. Sure, Arkansas is supposed to be able to handle the Spartans on paper. But if you don't show up to play a physical brand of basketball, you're going to lose most games in the end.
"We told them it was going to be physical," Musselman said. "I thought we responded much better in the second half. But we lost the game, you know what I mean? This team has got a lot of areas we’ve got to improve on."
It's a small sample size, but Arkansas has some clear issues that it needs to address if it's going to live up to the preseason hype. Things don't get any easier either, as the Razorbacks travel to the Bahamas next week for the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. Immediately after that, the Hogs welcome the No. 9 Duke Blue Devils on Nov. 29 inside Bud Walton Arena for a high-stakes matchup.
"I think a job for our staff is if we’re not doing things the way we need to, we have to make adjustments," Musselman said. "We can’t keep doing the same thing, because every team’s personality, every team’s personnel strengths and weaknesses are different. I’ve got to come up with a little bit different scheme than what we’ve seen thus far. And we will. Whether it works or not, I don’t know.
"We can ill-afford to continue playing, whether it’s pick-and-roll, whether it’s chasing guys off screens, whether it’s playing guys off isolations, we have to adjust and we will, starting tonight. I’ll go back … this team has been incapable right now other than the Purdue game of taking away the three and taking away the dribble. So I’ve got to get with the staff and get with the players and make some kind of adjustment."
Up next, No. 14 Arkansas will face the Stanford Cardinal (3-1) in the Bahamas in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. The game is set to tip off at 6:30 p.m. CT and will broadcast on ESPNU.
