By Nate Allen
Special to the News-Times
FAYETTEVILLE - As the two four-year seniors in Arkansas’ six-man senior class, North Little Rock High grad Anton Beard and Forrest City High grad Trey Thompson have played for Razorbacks teams that struggled on the road like this one, but also the 5-4 and 6-3 SEC road teams of 2015 and 2017 that went 27-9 and 26-10 overall.
With four other seniors, led by second-year junior college transfer star guards Jaylen Barford and Daryl Macon, and two sophomores returning and 6-11 freshman flash Daniel Gafford of El Dorado among the rookie additions, why are these Hogs 0-3 in true road games, having been blown out 91-65 by Houston in Houston before losing SEC road tilts at Mississippi State and Auburn by scores of 78-75 and 88-77?
“I just feel like sometimes we come out with an offensive mindset on the road and start going back to things that led us to losing,” starting guard Beard said Monday with Arkansas coming off last Saturday’s 65-63 defensive-oriented SEC victory over Missouri at Walton Arena. “If we just play together, play for each other and play defense, we’ll be all right.”
Thompson, the 6-9 big man alternating with Gafford on the low post, concurred.
“I think if we come out and play together,” Thompson said. “Just stay together whether we’re up or down, keep our poise and play good defense, I think we’ll be all right.”
Arkansas coach Mike Anderson always stresses defense, and he was encouraged by Arkansas’ defense coming back late against Mizzou to prevail after losing an 18-point lead accumulated during the Razorbacks’ 36-28 first half, which contrasted with the dreadful first half in their previous SEC game at Walton where they trailed LSU 41-21 at intermission before losing 75-54.
“I thought the Missouri game we came out with great energy defensively and it got us into some offense transition wise,” Anderson said Monday. “And then I thought the last two or three minutes and 30 some odd some seconds was some of our better defense. We didn’t let them score. Missouri had a couple of shots, but they were contested shots. I just thought our energy on defense was totally different. You are going to need that on the road.”
However, Anderson asserted with the Razorbacks (12-5, 2-3 in the SEC) playing Florida (12-5, 4-1) on ESPN2 at 6 p.m. Wednesday night at the Gators’ O’Connell Center in Gainesville where the Razorbacks haven’t won since Nolan Richardson’s 1995 national runner-up team prevailed 94-85, even stout defense can’t prevail if they can’t put the ball in the hole.
“Even more so on the road, you’ve got to be able to make shots,” Anderson said. “You’ve got to make shots and you’ve got to withstand their runs. They are a team that shoots the basketball well.”
Making shots doesn’t just mean making twos and threes, but capitalizing on about every free throw given the home generally draws more freebie opportunities.
At Mississippi State, Arkansas only got to the line 12 times to Mississippi State’s 40. Arkansas compounded its woes in a three-point loss by only sinking five of its dozen.
At Auburn, the Hogs shot 13-of-19 to Auburn’s 17-of-22.
At Walton, they were 21-of-33 to Tennessee’s 18-of-26 in their overtime 95-93 SEC debut success back on Dec. 30 and were 12-of-20 to LSU’s 13-of-19 on Jan. 10. They could have put Missouri away instead of just eking by the Tigers had they not shot an abysmal 14-of-25 free throws last Saturday to Mizzou’s 10-of-14.
Even Macon and Barford, 85 percent and 77 percent free-throw shooters for Arkansas’ 18 SEC games last season, are down this season with Macon at 20-of-25 for 80 percent and Barford at 15-of-21 for 71 percent while Beard was 56-of-75 for .747 percent last season, has been to the line just five times in five SEC games and made three for 60 percent.
Why are things not so fine on the line?
“We just have to keep working on them,” Anderson said, noting the fine line of emphasizing them yet not creating a bigger mental block about them. “You don’t want to harp on them, but you have to put time in on them and we do. But free throws are personal. You have to get in there and really work on it, do some things on their own as well. We put them in different situations and different scenarios so they can work on it, but they have to go out there and just have the calmness to go and make them.”