That certainly could have been prettier. UNC Greensboro was an obvious trap game, given the huge Oklahoma game coming up on Saturday. But for the fourth straight game, the Razorbacks looked very sluggish and trailed for most of the first half. This time, unlike against Troy and SJSU, there was no huge late run to make the final score respectable. The Hogs had to battle all the way to final whistle.
As we’ll see, the Razorback defense was fine against a very bad offense, with a performance roughly in line with expectations. But against a mediocre pack line defense, the Hogs were totally lost. The Hogs’ shot selection was awful, and Arkansas again failed to hit jump shots.
Grading the Hogs
Our model assigns a grade for offense, defense, and overall for each team for each game they play. The grade basically looks at the high level numbers from the game and adjusts them for the quality of opponent. The final number is normalized (put on a 0-100 scale) to give a grade.
Here’s every game this year:
So Saturday was the worst performance of the season, grading at just 50. It also ended a streak of five straight games with grades above 70. Just when we started to think this team was figuring it out, we get a dud like this.
Makhi Mitchell may have saved the Hogs’ bacon in this one, grading at 95 and producing +13.9 net points during his 32 minutes. That’s not just a double-double, it’s a double-double on just 13% usage with zero turnovers.
The canary in the coalmine is Anthony Black at +16 in 33 minutes. That means the Hogs were -9 in the seven minutes he was off the floor. During all seven of those minutes, the Hogs had Ricky Council IV and Nick Smith running the offense together.
Council entered the game for Black with 9:32 left in the first half and Arkansas trailing 8-6. Here are Arkansas’ next ten offensive possessions until Black re-entered the game:
- Missed midrange jumper (Smith), deadball offensive rebound, turnover (Smith)
- Missed midrange jumper (Council), offensive rebound (Brazile), turnover (Brazile – injured here)
- Missed midrange jumper (Council)
- Foul drawn and free throws (Mitchell)
- Turnover (Council)
- Made midrange jumper (Devo)
- Turnover (Devo)
- Turnover (Devo)
- Made layup (Smith)
- Missed midrange jumper (Devo), deadball offensive rebound, foul drawn and free throws (Mitchell)
In just 10 possessions, the Hogs had five turnovers and attempted five midrange jumpers with only one shot at the rim (and zero from beyond the arc).
The 8-6 deficit was 22-10 when Black re-entered. On his first two possessions back in the game, he dished out an assist and then made an and-one layup, starting Arkansas’ comeback.
Part of the issue during that sequence was sloppy play, like whatever Council is doing here:
But a potentially more serious issue is that the chemistry between Council and Smith is not good, as neither is a pure point guard but both are ball-dominant guards. The Hogs need to figure out who is going to run the offense when Black needs a breather. Against teams that pack it in like UNCG, the Hogs have to get good ball movement. Instead, they had zero assisted or potentially-assisted shots in that entire sequence and only got one shot at the rim (a well-defended layup by Smith).
Advanced Stats
The Hogs were able to push the pace, which helped wear the Spartans down. Otherwise, this was mostly a disastrous offensive performance.
Arkansas was able to speed UNCG up, as you can see: the Spartans averaged a glacial 19.4 seconds per possession, but a quarter of their possessions lasted 10 seconds or less. They didn’t get anything out of those: just 13 points. Arkansas didn’t fare much better in transition, as they weren’t able to force turnovers against a turnover-prone team. That’s not ideal.
Thank goodness for free throws… but look at that hideous shot selection. No wonder Arkansas only shot 36% EFG… the Hogs took 35% of their shots from midrange! They got to the rim on a season-low 31% of shots, so they resorted to midrange jumpers instead. That’s never a good idea.
Arkansas’ offensive gameplan seemed lazy. The Hogs were happy to let Smith work in isolation, which worked only because Smith is incredibly-talented:
But that can’t be the basis of your offense.
The Hogs did occasionally get good movement. Devo Davis is very good at maintaining good spacing, and he has a knack for finding the right gap in the defense to sit in:
The problem is that he’s not a good 3-point shooter. But that’s not a bad shot: it’s an open catch-and-shoot 3 in rhythm. The Hogs finally started finding more of these in the second half, and once they got the right shooters in the right spots, they started falling. Here, Council avoids the temptation to play hero-ball and waits until Black comes open in the corner:
Most of the good passes in this game that led to open shots were by Black:
One thing I read about Black from recruiting analysts is that “he makes his teammates better”. That was a common line I saw. I guess I didn’t fully understand it until I watched him play, but it is certainly true.
So while the Hogs need Black to play the entire game essentially, I think it’s obvious that Smith needs to be the main volume scorer for this team. Council provided much-needed volume while Smith was out, and he’s still a true three-level scorer who will be asked to score in double figures regularly, but Smith is just better. He’s a better passer, he’s less turnover-prone, and he’s better at getting to the line. Those things mean that he can still be very valuable when he’s having an off-night shooting the ball. Council risks becoming a liability when he can’t shoot, as we saw in this game.
Highlights
Up Next
Arkansas faces Oklahoma in Tulsa on Saturday in a rematch of last year’s lopsided loss. This will be a huge game for the Hogs, as the matchup is very difficult.
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