The Arkansas Razorbacks (11-5, 0-3 SEC) dropped their third-straight conference game Saturday, 71-63, to the No. 8 Florida Gators (15-1, 2-1 SEC) at Bud Walton Arena.
Points were at a premium for the Hogs and Gators, who went into the halftime break with Florida owning a 28-25 lead over Arkansas. The second half featured more points, but more foul calls as well. The referees called 44 fouls, which resulted in 55 total free throws between the two teams (35 attempts for Arkansas and 30 for Florida).
Forward Adou Thiero was the Hogs' leading scorer with 17 points despite fouling out late in the second half. As a team, the Razorbacks shot a season-low 30% from the field and 18.8% from three.
Despite those poor offensive numbers, Florida couldn't take advantage and shot just 39.1% from the field and 28.6% from three, respectively. Where the Gators took advantage was on the boards. Arkansas gave up 16 offensive rebounds and Florida was able to capitalize with 19 second-chance points.
This is the first time since the 1988-89 season — when he was at Massachusetts — that Arkansas head coach John Calipari started 0-3 in conference play.
Here are some of HawgBeat's takeaways from Saturday's loss...
Dismal layup numbers
The main issue for Arkansas on Saturday was at the rim. The Razorbacks finished the game 2-of-16 on layups (a number Calipari didn't believe when he was told postgame), which is an astronomically low number for a team trying to upset a top-10 program.None of Arkansas' numbers looked good Saturday, but the low layup number has to get corrected because, outside of a dunk, it's the highest percentage shot you can get.
"I think we were just expecting to get hit on a lot of our layups and we would just adjust our bodies," Arkansas center Jonas Aidoo said after the game. "I mean, they had seven blocks but I feel like we just got to go up stronger to the basket, just trying to go up through their chest, put fouls on the bigs like we did, but we got to do that from the jump. Do that early, know that you’re going to make the layup."
Again with the streaks
Arkansas started the game strong and jumped out to a quick 11-2 run like it did against Ole Miss on Wednesday, but missed shots and bad rebounding allowed Florida to take the lead and not give it back.Once again, Arkansas had several minutes-long stretches where it went either scoreless or without a basket. Those offensive woes led to Arkansas shooting 30% from the field and 18% from three.
"I’m happy how we’re starting games. I am, but there’s a stretch in the middle where we come down," Calipari said. "And this game, we just missed layups. Like layup, tip-in, layup. It’s something different every game."
Calipari did mention the possibility of playing different lineups to fix his teams' offensive struggles.
"I got to look and say, ‘are we playing the right people? Are we playing the right way?’" Calipari said. "We’re getting shots. We’re getting layups. We got to the free throw line. We did all the stuff we’re trying to do."
Rebounding issues rear ugly head again
The inability to close out defensive possessions reared its ugly head again for the Hogs, who were out rebounded by the Gators, 49-39. Florida had 15 offensive rebounds and had 19 second-chance points in the game, which allowed it to stave off any kind of comeback Arkansas tried to mount."It’s more fight, I feel like I got to start first, playing in the SEC for a while," Aidoo said. "Just hit first and set the tone, lead by example and everybody will follow with that."
Perhaps the best example of that came in the later minutes of the game. Arkansas had cut the lead to 53-50 and had all the momentum after guard D.J. Wagner ignited the crowd with a slam dunk, but on the next trip down the floor, Florida missed a shot, grabbed the offensive rebound, swung the ball around the perimeter and drilled a three.
This is the third-straight conference game where Arkansas couldn't control the glass. Florida is already a dangerous team, and those offensive boards continually gave the Gators extra chances to score.
