What's On Paper Isn't Reality
If someone had said last week that Arkansas can get to the SEC championship game by beating a team it's already beaten twice and then take down 8th seeded Texas A&M, there would have been a stampede to sign up for the deal.
However, that might not have been the easiest path. Auburn has become a shell of its former self since Arkansas took down the No. 1 Tigers in Bud Walton Arena.
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Auburn came in 22-1, but finished the season 5-4 without a single win over a team above .500 in conference play. Add in Zep Jasper's rant about the Razorbacks that he concluded by saying "We feel like we’re going to beat the crap out of them when we see them again," and Arkansas would have had emotional fuel to add to the fact Auburn would have been the hunted in this scenario.
It was the perfect brew for a big Arkansas win on the way to the championship game. However, this is a much different scenario.
Texas A&M is not a team in free fall struggling to behave like a respected top national seed. It's a tough, gritty team on a hot streak that is not only playing to sneak into the NCAA tournament, but, unlike Auburn, knows it can beat Arkansas because the Aggies have already done so.
The tables are now turned. It's the Razorbacks who will be the potential prize kill being hunted.
The Aggies have that feel about them. They have the "that darned team" aura that Arkansas carried with it as the Hogs knocked off big team after big team down the stretch.
This game is going to be physical. Anyone who watched the Aggies shove Auburn around down low for rebound after rebound knows the Razorbacks will need to not only play big, but stay out of foul trouble to have a chance.
The one that thing has given Arkansas an edge so often is preparation, and there is little doubt head coach Eric Musselman was fully planned on how to take down Auburn.
But, if there was a plan in place for Texas A&M also, then Musselman deserves an extra half million for being the most prepared coach in the history of the profession.
Any plan from back in January would have to be scrapped because the A&M team that beat Alabama on the road and man-handled Auburn on a neutral floor the past two weeks is not the same team the Hogs sent into a tailspin nine weeks ago. Besides, that plan got Arkansas beaten in College Station and resulted in the slimmest of victories at Bud Walton.
Thomas Shea - USA TODAY Sports
Whatever the plan might be, it will have to involve somehow slowing down the combination of Henry Coleman III, Tyrese Radford, Quenton Jackson. Those three have combined for 101 points the past two games and have led the Aggies in scoring for four consecutive games.
While the selection committee might not value a semifinals win over the Aggies nearly as much as a win over Auburn, a win over a Texas A&M that is 7-1 as of late with a pair of major feathers in its cap under circumstances where the Aggies have everything to gain will be more impressive in reality.
If fans are looking for a true measuring stick of this team since January, this is it. Unfortunately, the Aggies will be measuring with that same stick.
This should be a fun one.
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