ARKANSAS REPORT CARD by 001

No one on the staff or team would dare say it, but this was a must win game for us. We have the harder future schedule than does our closest opponent. When you look at the stats for this game, you will see that they were pretty evenly matched with two exceptions. Arkansas made more field goals than State, but State made more free throws than Arkansas . And that’s really where we won the game. AT THE CHARITY STRIPE.
When your key player is held to one field goal and only 9 points in the game, you have to say we played an outstanding game with everyone else picking up their game. This win definitely gave us the advantage in the SECW race. Now it’s up to us to hold that lead through the remainder of the season. If you have the opportunity this week, come out to cheer the guys on at Oxford .
OFFENSE A-
Except for a short period in the beginning of the second half when we allowed Arkansas to overcome a 15 point deficit, we played great ball. We made 26 of 54 shots for 48.1%.
Even with Arkansas blocking 7 shots and making 8 steals, we still won the game. Our passing was good overall and our guys moved very well without the ball for most of the game. Towards the end of the game, they did stand around more. But in the last 2 minutes of the game, they did start moving better. Surprisingly, our last field goal came 4:54 mark in the game. From that point on, we only attempted one shot and that was a 3 point attempt by Stewart at the 3:00 minute mark. Every other shot we took in this time frame was free throws. We made 9 of 12 free throws and that is what won this game for us. Rhodes had an outstanding first half with 19 points of our 47 first half points. He finished the game with 24. Also, a tip of the hat to Elgin Bailey who quietly in 11 minutes pulled down 3 rebounds and scored 8 points. Jamont came close to a triple double with 9 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists.
DEFENSE A
Nothing more needs to be said about our defense yesterday. We won that football game! Or rather it looked like a football game at times because the striped shirts allowed a lot of banging and knock downs that no whistle was blown on. Seriously, our guys did played good defense. They were active all over the court. We pulled down 22 defensive rebounds, caused 14 turnovers, had 6 blocked shots and 7 steals. We are now at the point that anytime Jarvis blocks a shot, he is setting a new record. He now had 114 blocks on the year. I must admit that Arkansas did better offensively than most teams we played this year. They came away from the game shooting 46.0%. But we still won. Beverly, who we all know is a great player for Arkansas was held scoreless the last 13 minutes and 54 seconds of the game. That in itself speaks for our defensive effort.
ASSIST TO TURNOVER RATIO D
This is the same grade I gave us in the last game. Yesterday, we had 10 assists to 14 turnovers. In most games that could be costly. But in this case, other aspects of the game overcame this deficiency. Although Gordon had 6 turnovers, he did have 8 assists. Of interest to note is that our bench players only contributed 4 turnovers. The other 10 were between Gordon and Stewart. I think we will see improvement down the road in this category.
REBOUNDING A
We out rebounded Arkansas by 5, 38 to 33. I gave this an A because most of the Arkansas big men are seniors and should have done a better job than they did. I think this was a direct reflection of the way our big men stepped up. Jarvis again had a double-double with his 10 rebounds and 10 points.
3 POINT SHOOTING B
This area of the game could have been better if Jamont hadn’t tried so hard. He was 0 for 4 in this game. However, we ended up in pretty good shape hitting 5 of 13 for 38.5%. Not quite as good as the last game where we shot 43.5%. We have the shooters and this will show improvement down the line.
FREE THROW SHOOTING A
Same as last game. What more can be said when you hit 23 of 29 for 79.3%. That gives us 46 of 55 for 83.6% over the last two games. In this game, the winning edge came from free throws, especially in the last 3 minutes.
OFFICIATING D
This has to be one of the worst called games in the Hump this year. There were times when our game looked like a football game. This game was called by Mike Stuart, Mike Nance and Ron Groover. Remember these names. I hope I never see them in a game again.
OVERALL B+
I was hoping for a grade out of an A today, but it didn’t come out that way. But this win went a long way towards making this a successful season for our Dawgs. We now have the clear lead in the SECW and are 2nd in conference play to only Tennessee . We now need to protect this lead Wednesday at Oxford . Go Dawgs!!!