The Hogs are through! On a day of upsets, the Razorbacks took down an excellent Vermont team that is probably better than several of the teams that pulled upsets on Thursday.

Here’s a quick recap of the game.

Team Stats

Confused? Check out the advanced stats glossary to learn more about the stats cited here.

Okay, so I scrapped my old stat-collecting model and built a new one in the week of the NCAA Tournament. Is that ideal? No. Was it ready in time to fill out my bracket? Also no. But I like it and it’s what we’ll use using to preview and recap games from here on out (with tweaks, of course).

Basically, all possessions are divided into three categories: transition, putbacks, and halfcourt. Transition possessions are possessions where the first shot (or shooting foul) occurs within 10 seconds of a live-ball turnover. Putbacks are shots at the rim within five seconds of an offensive rebound. Everything else is halfcourt. Shooting data is only for halfcourt, since that’s where the actual chess match is. Transition and putbacks are chances to get free points so conversion percentage (or “floor” percentage) are all that matters.

Here are the team stats in the new format:

Basically, on a per-100 possessions basis, Arkansas generated 24.2 points in transition, 6.1 points from putbacks, and 83.3 points in halfcourt, for an offensive efficiency of 113.6 points per 100 possessions.

For more details on the individual stats in this table, the glossary has been updated with this table as an example.

This game is very typical of March Madness: some parts of it were predictable, but other parts were definitely not. I think the expectation was that Arkansas would use superior transition offense (Hogs are 27th in transition possessions and 28th in transition scoring rate) to get free points to keep up with Vermont, who would dominate the halfcourt game (14th in halfcourt scoring rate, 9th in halfcourt efficiency). But that’s not what happened at all. The Hogs didn’t get into transition much (20%, compared to season average of 25%). Instead, Arkansas was vastly better in the halfcourt game (111.3 efficiency vs. 91.7), while Vermont got points on a staggering 78% of its transition possessions. The Catamounts didn’t get into transition a lot, but when they did, they got points.

The shooting numbers are also interesting. When transition 3-pointers are removed, the Hogs actually shot a higher percentage from 3 (the numbers you see are effective field goal %, so 3-point makes are counted as 1.5 to reflect their higher point value). Arkansas’ excellent midrange defense (22nd in the country) came through again, holding Vermont to 18% on non-layup 2-pointers.

I think this is really encouraging. Arkansas was forced to play Vermont’s preferred halfcourt game and beat them at it soundly. In fact, Vermont only really hung around by trying to play Arkansas’ game.

Player Stats

Nothing surprising here. Stanley Umude was fantastic all-around. Vermont’s Ryan Davis was their star, but we’ve seen time and time again with good players against Arkansas’ defense, he wasn’t able to make an impact late: his final bucket came with 13:07 left to tie the game at 43.

Up Next

The New Mexico State Aggies are the Hogs’ (somewhat) surprising opponent. I picked them to beat UConn — the only major upset I successfully called yesterday. They were a rough matchup for UConn, as the Huskies are vulnerable to off-ball guards, a fact I mentioned in the West Region preview. Defending off-ball guards is a strength of Arkansas’ defense, so expect a different game on Saturday.

Keep an eye on this space for an in-depth preview of the game.

The latest from Fayette Villains, straight to your inbox

Enter your email to subscribe and receive new post alerts and other updates. You can unsubscribe at any time.