Yikes! That was pretty bad. The Hogs took a somewhat-unexpected setback on Saturday in Fayetteville, falling 70-64 to Mississippi State. Our preview called it a “huge trap game” and while I thought there was a decent chance the Hogs could drop this one, I didn’t expect the Hogs to drop it by giving up 70 points to an offense as bad as Mississippi State’s.
This result provided more evidence to many of the claims we’ve been repeatedly making on this site for weeks now: Jordan Walsh is good, even when he’s not scoring, and it’s a crime to not play him for as many minutes as foul trouble allows; Ricky Council IV is a major liability against defenses that prioritize cutting off dribble penetration; and Nick Smith is going to help this team. We’ll look at all of those below.
Team Stats
Arkansas actually did a nice job of getting in transition – that’s been a problem all season – but goodness, the Hogs were horrible in halfcourt on both offense and defense. Mississippi State’s halfcourt offense is not good, so allowing a 96.5 efficiency is not a good look, but Arkansas’ 71.2 halfcourt efficiency is ghastly.
Arkansas’ defensive gameplan was pretty simple: overplay Tolu Smith and make Mississippi State beat you with the jump shots they aren’t very good at. Problem: they did. State hit 6 of 10 from downtown when their season average would suggest more like 3 of 10 would be normal. That’s nine extra points in a six-point game.
The Hogs weren’t good defensively at all, but most of this is just “tip your cap” territory. The Bulldogs hit shots they don’t normally hit, plain and simple. That happens sometimes. UMBC hit 12 of 24 from beyond the arc when they beat Virginia in the 2018 first round. Crazy things happen when teams suddenly get hot.
For the offense, the Razorbacks couldn’t get to the rim (but scored when they were able to), which we expected, but the jump shots didn’t fall. This was against a top-10 defense, but the Hogs once again couldn’t hit jump shots, leaving them dependent on shots at the rim or at the line.
Individual Stats
Hoooo boy, there’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s go by name by name.
Nick Smith
The silver lining of this game is that Smith is back. He didn’t look particularly sharp, but he had no minutes limitations and played 17 minutes. Arkansas’ staff clearly believes he can and will be a major asset to a March run, so some bad minutes in mid-February are worth it to get him quickly re-integrated into the lineup.
Except… his minutes weren’t bad. The Hogs were actually +4 with him on the floor. It’s easy for the “eye test” folks to get caught up in direct contributions, which ignores the fact that basketball games are won and lost based on things that don’t show up in the box score and often aren’t seen unless you are watching closely with a trained eye.
One single game of going +4 in 17 minutes is obviously much too small a sample size to get overly excited, but if there were any folks out there worried about whose minutes he’d take or whether he’d actually be able to contribute, I think we can put that to rest, at least for now. We need multiple games of Smith at 30+ minutes, and I think we’re going to like what we see.
Ricky Council IV
Going back to the question of “whose minutes should Smith take”, here’s a candidate, in certain matchups. Council was -15 on the game (Arkansas outscored State 11-2 across the five possessions he sat) and made only one field goal. We saw this coming. From the preview:
This game does scream Black more than Council: Black is best on those pick-and-rolls, while Council is more of an iso player. State won’t give up a ton of isolations, as they will be content to help on the ball and give up a potential jump shot.
Pretty much any defense that is built to prevent dribble penetration (and hard to beat with isos) is going to shut down Council. He’s dynamite with the ball in his hands. He can use his size to win isolations and score at three levels, and his explosiveness to attack the rim either 1-on-1 or using screens. But when defenses are willing to go under screens, stunt at him on the perimeter, and have a low help defender step up against him, he’s shown a willingness to settle for long jumpers and become one-dimensional.
And he can’t afford to become a liability with the ball, because he’s not much help off the ball: his movement and spacing are poor, and he’s a bad offensive rebounder for his size.
We’ve got a mountain of evidence that Council is a bad play against any kind of zone or pack line-type defense. It started with San Diego State’s pack line in Maui (to his credit, he bounced back in the second half). Then there was UNC Greensboro, a game Arkansas almost lost, which we warned about in that preview due to Greensboro’s pack line. Council got off a rough start in SEC play, as LSU, Mizzou, and Auburn all played zone. Then the Hogs almost lost to South Carolina, who used a 1-3-1 zone all game. Now this, against State’s hybrid pack line defense.
In March, the Hogs will see more defenses like these. They cannot be heavily dependent on Council for offense in those games.
Devo Davis
This was a disastrous regression to the mean for Devo, and a good reminder that 25% 3-point shooters don’t suddenly become 45% 3-point shooters overnight… at least not permanently. So the problem was less that Devo only made two shots, but more that he attempted 11 and had a 23% usage rate… in a game when Nick Smith came back and played almost half the game. He’s very valuable as a defender and can help with some scoring, but his shooting percentages from the last month-plus are unlikely to continue deep into March.
Jordan Walsh
It’s getting kind of tiring beating this drum, but… Walsh was +7. Best on the team. Again. And he only played 23 minutes in a game where he was not limited by foul trouble.
The “eye test” folks only know how to repeat that he’s struggling to shoot, so putting Makhi Mitchell (???) or Jalen Graham (-9 in six minutes… how is that possible?) in at the 4 is a better idea. It’s not. That wasn’t just true this game… it’s been true all season. Walsh should be playing as many minutes as his foul situation will allow. Period.
Up Next
Arkansas’ margin for error is now less than zero. They really need a win over Texas A&M in College Station on Wednesday night.
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