HawgBeat - Thoughts from Arkansas' 81-77 exhibition win against No. 3 Purdue
HawgBeat provides notes, quotes, thoughts, stats, observations and more from Arkansas' exhibition loss to Purdue.
arkansas.rivals.com
HawgBeat - Thoughts from Arkansas' 81-77 exhibition win against No. 3 Purdue
HawgBeat provides notes, quotes, thoughts, stats, observations and more from Arkansas' exhibition loss to Purdue.
arkansas.rivals.com
Stopping Edey
After sweeping every National Player of the Year Award at the end of last season and being named the Preseason AP Player of the Year going into 2023-24, it was expected that Arkansas would have issues with the 7-foot-4 center.It wasn't always easy, but Arkansas did its job in preventing Edey from completely taking over the game, as he scored just 15 points with nine rebounds and fouled out of the game in overtime.
"We’re playing against a team that’s so well-coached, and is very physical and very tough and has a unique player, a star player," Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman said following the game. "Potential national player of the year. And I thought in the first half they (the Hogs on Edey) executed the game plan as good as they possibly could, meaning our guys.
I'll be honest, I didn't think the Hogs were going to be able to stop Edey in today's exhibiton matchup. I imagined that if Arkansas was going to win, it meant stopping everyone else on the court. Boy, was I wrong.
Eric Musselman's squad proved why scouting and preparation are so integral to the program. The Razorbacks made it their mission to not let Edey beat them, and it worked out in the final score. Can they sustain that level of play throughout the entire season? That's the biggest question.
"I think I talked about it, but we used basically the same rules that we did with Shaquille O’Neal where we tried to pressure the ball," Musselman said. "I thought that the high-low pass, we got a lot of deflections. Brazile had at least three. So we tried to smother the ball and then the other three guys that did not guard Edey, we tried to play a yo-yo game where you’re in-and-out and you’re stunt bluffing.
"I was pretty surprised the way that we executed it with only having…You know we had a long prep, obviously, but I was impressed with how our guys they made him work for every possession."
While it doesn't show up on the stat sheet, Arkansas forward Chandler Lawson — a transfer from Memphis — played well on the defensive side of the ball despite standing at 6-foot-8.
"Defensively, the blocked shots," Musselman said. "Hit a big shot early in the game when we were kind of (wondering) what’s going to happen with us offensively. He’s a great teammate. And like I mentioned, he’s really great for the coaching staff. They all love when he comes to their drill. They love coaching him. He’s got a real positive, upbeat vibe to him."
Brazile is all the way back
After a four-point performance in last week's exhibition against UT Tyler, Brazile looked more like his old self against the Boilermakers on Saturday. In 31 minutes, the Hogs' forward scored 15 points with two made threes, grabbed five rebounds and made one assist.
Purdue head coach Matt Painter had good things to say about Brazile following the exhibition.
"Yeah, good player obviously," Painter said. "He hit those two threes, you know and stretched us out. He plays hard and competes and has good athleticism, good length. If he can have the combination of rebounder, defender and a guy that can stretch the defense, I think that can really help them."
There's always some concern when it comes to a player's recovery following a season-ending ACL injury like Brazile suffered, but fans shouldn't be too worried according to Musselman.
"Physically, the injury, he's healed," Musselman said. "He's got total medical clearance. I wish he would have played a couple minutes in the Red-White Game, but we wanted to get him another week into his rehab, so to speak. This was great for him because it was a physical game. It was a game where you're getting bumped and dislodged.
"He hung in there and played great and stretched the defense out. His shot selection from three, the four that he took were all good shots. He didn't force anything, and he opened up the floor for dribble-drives. We went to that 15, fist-up, lift four with him lifted, and they had to stay attached to him."
Based off everything I saw in today's exhibition, it's easy to see why Brazile was selected to the Preseason All-SEC First Team. Even after his injury, the 6-foot-10 forward consistently uses his range and athleticism to make plays that make your jaw drop. If he continues to progress, I wouldn't be shocked to see Brazile as a dark horse candidate for SEC Player of the Year when it all comes down to it.
Perimeter defense
Coming into the season, everyone knew that Davonte Davis and Tramon Mark were going to be good defenders. They had proven as much throughout their careers. What wasn't expected was the depth of talented perimeter defenders the Razorbacks have.
The Hogs held the Boilermakers to 26-67 on field goals (38.8%), 8-27 on three pointers (29.6%) and forced Purdue into 17 turnovers.
"You know, we work on special situations so much," Musselman said. "Some teams in the summer just do skill. They do four-man skill, a lot of programs. We utilize our time where we actually practice and work on…I mean, we have a thing we took from the Dallas Cowboys called ‘Mojo Moments’ where we play some music that goes along with that movie and we yell out a situation and our guys have to execute."
Arkansas finished the game with 14 steals and seven block shots. That's especially impressive considering the Boilermakers have Edey roaming the paint.
"I thought a lot of the little things, the first half Purdue did a really good job of chasing down loose balls," Musselman said. "A play would break down and we’d get a deflection and somehow they’d end up with it."
You never want to overreact to an exhibition game, but it's pretty clear that Arkansas shouldn't experience a drop off in defensive ability this season.
Shaking the rust off
Understandably so, it was a slow start for the Razorbacks. The Hogs had two turnovers before scoring their first two points.
Purdue grew its lead to 12-5 with 14 minutes to play in the first half, but that was the largest it got in the first 30 minutes. Arkansas went on to outscore the Boilermakers 26-14 from that point on.
By the midway point in the first half, the Hogs had five turnovers and Purdue had four. After that, the Boilermakers gave the ball up seven times compared to Arkansas' three in the final 10 minutes of the first half.
The Razorbacks really opened things up with an 8-0 run in a 1:34 span that resulted in a 28-22 lead with 2:30 remaining in the first half.
Nine different Arkansas players scored in the first half, and while the offense looked slow to start, things picked up in nearly every facet.
While we only saw Zach Edey for eight minutes and Devo Davis for six due to foul trouble, it was as fun of a first half of basketball as you could ask for.
"I don’t have the stats in front of me, but probably not a lot of people that are going to score 81 points against Purdue," Musselman said. "I mean, just plain and simple. Probably the first half is probably the half that we wanted our primary ball handlers to not walk the ball up, so we can get better at that, for sure."
Despite the slow start to the game, it ended up being a competitive back-and-forth that you normally don't see until March. With a football season currently in a tough stretch, it was nice to see Arkansas fans have something to finally cheer for.
"What an incredible performance by both teams for our crowd," Musselman said. "Who gets to watch that in October? It just doesn't happen. That game was incredible for anybody that got to witness it. It really was. Almost as good as any game I've participated in and it's an exhibition game."
