The Razorbacks are back in the top 10, sitting at 9th. UNC Greensboro is the final tune-up before the schedule gets tough, starting with a huge game against Oklahoma on Saturday.
Meet the Spartans
UNC Greensboro’s first period of sustained success came under former coach Wes Miller, who coached the Spartans from 2011 to 2021, reaching two NCAA Tournaments (2018 and 2021). After he was hired away by Cincinnati, the Spartans turned to then-Radford coach Mike Jones, who is in his second season. The Spartans went 17-15 (9-9 SoCon) last season, but were picked third in the SoCon preseason coaches’ poll (and fourth in the preseason media poll).
The Spartans were competitive in a road loss to Miami, but overall, they’ve been unimpressive against a weak schedule.
Model pick: Arkansas 77, UNC Greensboro 51.
Jones wants to rely on his defense. The Spartans are decent defensively and their unique scheme might give the Hogs fits, at least for a while. But it probably won’t matter because the Spartan offense is really a mess. It was putrid last year and has somehow been even worse to start this season.
When UNCG has the ball
This side of the ball is… lopsided. The Spartans don’t really do anything particularly well. Their offense is really heavy on ball screens and their shot selection isn’t horrible, but even the open shots don’t drop at a good rate. They don’t look overly athletic on offense, so the Hogs can probably switch most of those ball screens and still stay in front of everyone.
In fact, UNCG’s best offense is its defense. The Spartans do force a lot of turnovers, and they turn those into transition buckets at the other end at a high rate. That’s basically all they do well. If the Hogs can avoid turning it over at the other end, they should be able to stop this offense without much difficulty.
This offense’s biggest weakness is that it simply cannot shoot the ball. The Spartans rank 341st in adjusted Effective Field Goal %. They put up 3-pointers at a good rate (111th) but don’t make them (302nd). They are even worse at the rim: just 173rd at getting there and 304th at finishing. That leaves them unable to take advantage of Arkansas’ only relative defensive weakness: the Hogs allow too many looks near the rim.
In terms of shot creation, the Spartans also turn the ball over too much (296th) and are just average at crashing the offensive glass (157th). They are capable of drawing fouls (103rd in free throw rate), so I guess that’s a watchout for the Hogs.
Personnel
It’s really a 3-man show for Greensboro: the names to watch are the top three on the list. There’s 6’6 combo guard Keondre Kennedy, 6’1 guard Keyshaun Langley, and 6’8 forward Mikeal Brown-Jones.
Kennedy’s game has some similarities to Omari Moore, the tall San Jose State combo guard who had 21 points against the Hogs. He can get to the rim and draw fouls and he’s also a decent 3-point shooter. Langley is the best 3-point shooter, hitting 39 percent for the year. The majority of his attempts will be from downtown; otherwise, he’s an offensive initiator, averaging more than three assists per game. And Brown-Jones, a transfer from VCU, is the interior threat. He’s shooting 60 percent inside the arc this season. He’s also the team’s best offensive rebounder. He’s not as good of a defensive rebounder as you’d like, and he’s very foul-prone, having already fouled out of two games this season.
After those three, there’s a large production dropoff. 6’0 point guard Dante Treacy is a pretty good passer and defender, but he struggles to shoot and turns the ball over too often. It’s a similar story for 6’1 guard Kobe Langley. 6’9 forward Mohammad Abdulsalam is the team’s best defensive rebounder, but he doesn’t do much on offense. The tallest Spartan is 6’10 Dutch-born center Bas Leyte, who is a decent shot-blocker and rebounder but a poor shooter.
The obvious roster weakness is the lack of tall guards. Kennedy is the only reliable ballhandler taller than 6’1. The Hogs should be able to deflect a lot of passes and prevent the smaller guards from having much impact on the game. And with only one decent interior threat, it seems likely that the Hogs can force Kennedy and Brown-Jones to do everything. Kennedy will probably get to the line a few times and will probably frustrate the Hogs by drilling a couple of low-percentage midrange jumpers. Brown-Jones will probably get a couple layups by parking under the basket and waiting for Makhi Mitchell to get out of position. But that’s about all the Spartans will be able to do.
When Arkansas has the ball
For the third straight game, Arkansas will face a unique defense. It would not surprise me at all if Eric Musselman and staff intentionally scheduled a sampler platter of defensive schemes in order to prepare this team for what it might see in March.
The Hogs had some issues with Troy’s no-middle and San Jose State’s 1-3-1, though they eventually solved the latter in emphatic fashion.
Now comes UNC Greensboro, and its pack line defense.
The Pack Line Defense
The pack line defense is a form of man-to-man that looks at times like a 2-3 zone. Like the no-middle (read more about it in our Troy preview), it emphasizes help defense from one pass away (defender of the nearest offensive player may help on the ball). Also like the no-middle, it’s not run at the NBA level because NBA players can simply shoot it out of existence.
Arkansas should theoretically struggle with a pack line, but they managed to beat the only SEC team that ran it – LSU – three times last season.
The pack line defense starts with former Wisconsin coach Dick Bennett, who led the Badgers to the 2000 Final Four. His son Tony is the best-known coach who uses it, winning the 2019 NCAA Championship and five ACC titles at Virginia.
The basic gist of the pack line is that one pass away defenders stand in the gaps between their man and the ball:
This helps remove the threat of dribble penetration. When an offensive player does try a dribble drive, one pass away defenders are coached to “stunt” towards the ball and then recover, like this Spartan defender does:
It gets its name because of the defense’s tendency to “pack” all of its defenders into the high-post, as you can see four Spartan defenders in the high-post area of this gif. In addition to dribble drives, entry passes into the low post are also nearly impossible against this defense, when it is run correctly. Traditional post-ups are almost non-existent.
We covered how to beat a pack line in last March’s LSU preview, but here’s a quick review.
Good Spacing
Good spacing is the biggest key to beating a pack line. Like the no-middle, the pack line is vulnerable to skip passes (passes that “skip” the nearest offensive player), which can lead to open 3-pointers:
Note how Devo Davis does a nice job of feeling out the open area when his teammate enters the high post.
Offensive Rebounding
The high post isn’t the best spot to be for offensive rebounds, but the pack line requires that three or four defenders at a time be there. That’s going to create opportunities for offensive boards, particularly when the ball breaks off the side of the rim:
LSU’s pack line last season was one of the better defenses in the country. UNC Greensboro may run a similar scheme, but they aren’t in the same class. For example, watch how quickly Miami executes this stack pick-and-roll, creating a rim run against a defense built to not allow that:
If that’s Anthony Black and Nick Smith running that play, Smith is going to get a pretty high-percentage shot there every time. And on that play, even if he gets cut off, he’ll have a chance to kick out for a wide-open 3 from the top of the key because of the Spartan defenders collapsing in.
More severe breakdowns aren’t extremely common, but they do show up when watching UNCG. This, for instance, should never happen:
Part of that is just an athleticism issue. Miami was much more athletic. Arkansas is even more athletic. But properly executed, the corner defender (#24 – Treacy) stunts there and either knocks the ball free or dissuades the ballhandler from continuing his drive. Instead, he just watches his teammate get cooked.
The Spartans are very good at getting back on defense and forcing teams to beat the pack line in halfcourt sets. The Razorbacks might be able to cash some turnovers in for easy baskets, but other than that, they might can count too much on easy transition buckets.
You can see the profile of a mediocre pack line defense: the Spartans allow way too many 3-point attempts and makes, but they force turnovers and prevent shots at the rim. That makes this a tough matchup for the Hogs, who are dependent on getting and making shots at the rim, and who have struggled with turnovers so far this season.
The Hogs might can get to the free throw line a bit and should be able to have some success on the offensive glass. And when they do get to the rim, they should have no problem finishing due to UNCG’s lack of a true rim protector.
Whether or not Arkansas can hit some 3-pointers is going to determine how quickly the Hogs pull away. If they can’t (like against Troy), then this game might stay close longer than it probably should. But Nick Smith opens up so much on offense that the Hogs should have some wide-open attempts from the early part of the game. If those fall, the Hogs can put this one away quickly as the Greensboro offense is not going to be able to keep up.
Keys to the Game
- Protect the ball. UNCG’s best offense is its defense. The Spartans can force turnovers and turn those into easy buckets at the other end. Taking care of the ball will give Arkansas more chances to shoot and take away the Spartans’ best offense. The main way UNCG gets turnovers is by help defenders poking the ball free, so ballhandlers have to watch out for that.
- Be smooth on offense. Good spacing and crisp passing are the key to beating a pack line defense. If the Hogs can do those things, they’ll create wide-open 3-pointers and paths to the basket when the defense has a breakdown. Even if the 3-point shots don’t fall immediately, the Hogs’ athleticism should eventually overcome the Spartans.
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