The Razorbacks are on a two-game win streak after Tuesday’s 60-40 win over LSU in snowy Fayetteville. The win streak is over the 12th- and 13th-ranked SEC teams, but I don’t think it’s the quality of wins that mattered. Arkansas completely controlled both games and seems to be building confidence.
Team Stats
That’s a lot of red! This was not a pretty offensive performance all around. The game was played at a snail’s pace – just 63 possessions – but key to the Hogs’ victory was scoring 17 points in transition on just nine transition opportunities (14%). The Hogs have been quite bad in transition in SEC play, but while they were once again unable to run, they did a great job of converting opportunities in this game.
Defensively, the Hogs smothered the Tigers in halfcourt. LSU’s offense has a lot of issues.
It’s not complicated: LSU couldn’t shoot. The Tigers took 43% of their shots from midrange and hit 17% of them. Yikes. But they couldn’t hit from beyond the arc or score at the rim either. The Hogs also did a nice job of forcing turnovers, though the Tigers recovered a lot of those shot chances with a solid 33% offensive rebound rate.
The Hogs shot well. We talked about finishing at the rim in the preview, noting that Arkansas shot just 63% at the rim in the first meeting even though LSU’s rim defense is bad:
Arkansas obviously missed the memo in the first meeting. LSU will only allow about 30-40% of shots to actually come at the rim, but the Hogs have to finish on better than 63%. If you can take advantage of those opportunities, you can win without hitting many 3-pointers.
As expected, Arkansas got 38% of shots at the rim, but shot 74% this time around. Much better.
Of course, the Hogs also shot 58% EFG from beyond the arc. That’s two straight game where the 3-point shooting has been solid. They’ve been mostly wide-open shots, but Arkansas’ scheme is going to create open 3-pointers as opponents have to focus on keeping the Hogs away from the rim. It may be too early to be overly optimistic, but it’s a good sign.
Individual Stats
As we expected, LSU has KJ Williams but nothing else on offense. Despite a good effort by the Hogs to contain him, he still stuffed the stat sheet, though he was quite alone.
For the Hogs, the numbers are interesting. Devo is MVP, and he’s been awesome in recent games. Absolute game-changer if he continues to be that good.
The interesting numbers are with the bigs. Makhel Mitchell did not play after suffering an injury against Ole Miss. It’s probably not a major injury but we don’t know when he’ll be back. He’s the Hogs’ best rim protector and low-post defender. In his stead, Makhi was a mixed bag in his 28 minutes. A couple of late alley-oops got him to 10 points and 8 rebounds (he also blocked three shots), but he had three turnovers and blew several chances to score with weak hands. To be fair, he was awful in the first game, but being just mediocre is an upgrade. Arkansas was just +2 while he was on the floor.
Jalen Graham, meanwhile, had arguably his best game as a Hog. It wasn’t his most directly productive effort, but most of his directly productive efforts don’t help the team, which is why he’s last on the team in RAPM, which measures how much better a player makes his team. In this game, he had just six points, but only turned it over once and the Hogs were +23 while he was out there (minus-3 in the other 23 minutes). He replaced Makhi in the first half and that’s when the Hogs went on that big 23-2 run that knocked LSU down. He wasn’t necessarily the cause of that run, but he played well within the team during that stretch, which is nice to see.
Kamani Johnson didn’t do much in seven minutes, though the Hogs were +5 during his time on the floor. He played the 4 with Makhi when Arkansas forced a critical shot clock violation when it was 48-35.
When will the lineup tighten?
Arkansas used just eight players in this game, but that was with Makhel out and the Hogs are still waiting on Nick Smith.
Jordan Walsh played just 24 minutes. The Hogs had 38 points when he played the entire first half and 22 points when he barely played in the second. That’s pretty normal: he didn’t shoot well but he makes Arkansas’ offense much better without scoring. He was on the floor for LSU to start the second half on a 13-2 run and then left the game, not to return. I think the Hogs wanted to see some other looks at the 4, so we saw both Kamani and Graham working with Makhi for a large part of the second half.
It seems that Kamani and Graham are battling for the last spot in the rotation. They bring very different styles and skillsets: Kamani’s contributions, especially on defense, are not normally seen in the box score, while Graham is a stat stuffer. RAPM says that Kamani is the clear choice, but Graham’s ability to be a volume scorer seems pretty valuable. Maybe Muss sticks with both and we’ll continue to see nine-man rotations, with the last two or three guys being used situationally.
Up Next
The Hogs will be in Waco on Saturday to battle a top-20 Baylor team. The Bears just knocked off Kansas, so this will be an uphill battle. Arkansas still doesn’t have a true road win, so this would be a great opportunity.
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