The No. 23 Arkansas Razorbacks (11-3, 0-1 SEC) were served a reality check Saturday with a 76-52 blowout loss on the road to the No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers (14-0, 1-0 SEC).
Arkansas' rebounding — or lack thereof — told the story of the game. The Hogs were out-rebounded by Tennessee, 51-29, and Arkansas gave up 24 offensive boards which led to 16 second-chance points for the Vols.
Guard D.J. Wagner scored a team-high 17 points and freshman guard Boogie Fland added 12 of his own, but a seven-minute scoring drought in the first half allowed the Vols to push out to a lead they never relinquished.
Tennessee forward Chaz Lanier was a one-man wrecking crew on the offensive side of the ball, as he scored 29 points and hit five threes to keep any comeback attempt the Hogs had at bay.
HawgBeat grades the team's overall performance from Saturday's SEC opening loss...
Offense: D
For the first five minutes of the game, it looked like Arkansas was going to hang with the top team in the land. Wagner scored the Hogs' first seven points and Arkansas actually led, 12-9, with a little more than 14 minutes remaining in the first half.That's where it stopped, though. Arkansas looked disorganized, disrupted and dysfunctional for the rest of the first half and most of the rest of the game. The Razorbacks went over seven minutes without a field goal and only mustered one point — a free throw by Wagner with 8:12 in the first half— in that time.
The second half was better, but it didn't matter. The Volunteers outscored the Hogs 34-25 and while the shooting numbers were better — 40.5% from the field and 35.7% from three — the Razorbacks defense (more on that below) gave Tennessee too many opportunities due to poor rebounding.
"You can’t miss 10 in a row or you’re not going to win," Calipari said after the game. "We did some things good. We fought. All I kept saying was ‘Let’s get it to single digits. Let’s get it to 9 and you watch what happens.’
"We get it to 13, give up a three. So they deserved to win. They played like the No. 1 team in the country. They played with some desire. They were not going to let us come in here and win a fight. They were going to win that and they did."
Calipari revealed that he opted against a shootaround for his team prior to the start of the game, and that was evident in how the Hogs shot. It wasn't bad shot selection — Arkansas had tons of easy looks in the game — the shots just simply did not fall.
"We had a bunch of good threes, good looks, and you miss them," Calipari said. "Look, I say this all the time, you don’t have to make ‘em all. You can’t miss ‘em all. And we missed every one that gave us a chance to get back (in it). I mean, some of them badly."
Wing Johnell Davis missed all four of the shots he attempted and forward Trevon Brazile went 0-for-2 from the field. Fland finished 5-of-15 and Wagner went 6-of-12. The 37.7% the Hogs shot is a season-low and the 20.7% from deep is one of the worst of the season.
Tennessee's defense was a problem for the Razorbacks all day, and the Hogs turned the ball over 15 times. The Volunteers were flying around the floor and were especially powerful in the paint, as they allowed only 22 points down low.
Defense: F
There's no way around it, Arkansas put up a stinker of a defensive performance against the Volunteers on Saturday, and it was most prevalent on the glass.Arkansas lost the rebounding battle, 51-29, and gave up an astonishingly bad 24 offensive rebounds, and the Volunteers capitalized on those with 16 second-chance points. It looked, at least to the naked eye, like an effort issue most of the time.
Several times the Volunteers missed a shot and one Tennessee player came up with the ball surrounded by Razorbacks. The inability to close out defensive possessions by coming away with the rebound is what plagued Arkansas on Saturday.
"We only had one guy go to try to offensive rebound," Calipari said. "They had more offensive rebounds than we had rebounds...all I kept saying in the second half (was) let’s get it to single digits. We do something good, they get an offensive rebound.
"We do something good, they get an offensive rebound. We make it 13, they get two offensive rebounds, two threes and you look around and you’re like, ‘Guys, it has nothing to do with anything but rebounding."
To Arkansas' credit, the Hogs did block 10 shots. Big men Jonas Aidoo and Zvonimir Ivisic had three a piece and Thiero had two of his own, but those blocked shots often either went out of bounds or right into the hands of a Tennessee player.
Tennessee didn't necessarily shoot the lights out from a statistics perspective — 39.1% from the field — but beyond the arc was a problem. The Volunteers hit 10 threes and Lanier had half of those.
Also to Arkansas' credit, those 10 blocked shots are eight more than the Volunteers usually have — opponents average just 2.1 per game against them. The Hogs also had more steals (8) than Tennessee usually gives up (5.8).
At some point, the Hogs needed to key in on Lanier, but he just kept getting open and hitting shots. He finished with a game-high 29 points on 50% (10-of-20) shooting and 5-of-9 from deep.
The other player that caused problems on the offensive end for Arkansas was big man Igor Milicic. He finished with a double-double, 13 points and 18 rebounds. Six of those 18 boards were offensive boards, and the two threes he hit both came immediately after Arkansas scored.
Overall grade: D-
This was one of those games where you just have to learn from it, flush it from your memory and move on. The Razorbacks were dominated for 35-of-40 minutes in the game and the lack of physicality and rebounding meant any comeback attempt never went anywhere.
Arkansas needs to shape up and do it quickly, because though the teams the Hogs will face in the SEC might not be as talented as Tennessee, they are just as physical.
The Razorbacks will return home to face the Ole Miss Rebels on Wednesday at Bud Walton Arena. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. and the game will air on ESPN2.
