Can Hogs Repeat History?
On paper, there are a lot of similarities between Arkansas and Duke this season.
Duke beat Kentucky and Gonzaga in the early part of the season. Arkansas beat Kentucky and Gonzaga in the past month.
Nelson Chenault - USA TODAY - Sports
Duke lost a key conference game against a powerful conference rival in North Carolina that resulted in a split while getting bounced from the conference tournament by a white hot upstart in Virginia Tech.
Duke lost a key conference game against a powerful conference rival in Tennessee that resulted in a split while getting bounced from the conference tournament by a white hot upstart in Texas A&M.
Kim Klement - USA TODAY Sports
And while people are busy comparing Arkansas to Duke, there is also a natural tendency to compare Arkansas teams to those of the past.
The standard default is to always go back to those 1994 and 1995 teams. It's hard not to want to think back to 1994 with former Duke guard Grant Hill calling games from the sidelines and Mike Krzyzewski pacing the sidelines with a boatload of super stars run around in Blue Devils uniforms.
In '94, Arkansas needed 31 wins to claim the national title, a number that stood out to me as a kid because it was the number of Roger Crawford, one of only two seniors and the teams leader who was injured before the final run. It's the same number the Razorbacks would need to win a national title this year.
But while Duke isn't as far off from the talent level of that team, Arkansas isn't comparable to the 1994 or 1995 version of the Arkansas Razorbacks. Sure, all the fight and the heart is there, but it wasn't those national championship game teams that established that core essence that carried throughout the 1990s.
That was established by the Hogs' 1990 NCAA tournament team. The Hogs had earned a level of national interest from its 120-101 shootout with the famed Loyola-Marymount team that used to run teams out of the building, but interest was all it was at the time. Respect wasn't there yet, including from much of the Arkansas fan base.
That 1990 team was a young, scrappy team that bounced its way between the Top 15 and lower portion of the Top 10 on the backs of a young core highlighted by sophomores Todd Day, Lee Mayberry and Oliver Miller with a list of role players and leaders around them that could probably make a run at a national championship on their own in the current clilmate.
Guys like Lenzie Howell, Arlyn Bowers, Mario Credit, Ernie Murry, Ron Huery, Clyde Fletcher, Isaiah "Butch" Morris, Cannon Whitby and Warren Linn provided the wall and the incubator to allow the other three to grow.
This is the team that essentially got into a street fight with UNLV, possibly the baddest team to ever hit an NCAA floor. Yes, it was that game, the one everyone quotes Larry Johnson as having said "You better go get you some men" to Nolan Richardson while running up the court.
It was a skinny Todd Day out there taking actual swings at Johnson, who was twice his size. There was a relentless fight and don't back down mentality that was being burned into the Razorback DNA that year.
Now don't get it confused. This is truly a comparison about what was inside these players and what it meant to the program going forward.
That iteration of the Razorbacks not only showed future Razorbacks the value of heart and defense, but also what putting belief into what Nolan Richardson was trying to teach his team could do. What they did on the floor was so strong that it made a section of the fan base that wanted to hate Nolan Richardson so bad for reasons that had nothing to do with basketball into loyal followers and some of his strongest supporters.
That team turned the tide on the perception of Arkansas basketball. All those things are happening again now.
This Razorback team has bought into Musselman's philosophy and has laid forth the physical evidence of what can happen if players will just chill out and accept the teachings he's delivering. Much like that '90 team, this group of Hogs have helped restore faith and trust in the Arkansas coaching staff to the level it was after that 1990 season, and it has primarily been done through mental toughness and defense.
And while Arkansas isn't breaking the 100-point mark 13 times, including a night where the Hogs went for 166, it's allowing a specific DNA to flood the Razorback identity that is setting the foundation for everything that is to follow.
It also has to take down Duke in the NCAA tournament to achieve the unthinkable, just like in 1990.
Duke and Arkansas met earlier in 1990 in the preseason NIT.
The Razorbacks took on one of the most complete teams Duke ever put on the floor and ran the national championship contenders out of the gym. Krzyzewski had Bobby Hurley, Christian Laetner and a young Grant Hill leading his team, but early in the second half, the Hogs made one of their patented runs as they tried to wear the Blue Devils down.
Duke was so flustered that Krzyzewski, known for always being calm and collected, got a technical foul.
As Arkansas pushed the lead to nearly 10 on the strength of a surprising career day from Morris with roughly three minutes left, the possibility of a loss became unimaginable.
A vicious spin move by Todd Day with 2:45 left made it 90-79. A minute later, Huery made it a 12-point game at 93-81.
All that was left was the patience to run the clock out and advance. But Arkansas kept playing a risky game as that was just who they were and Richardson wasn't changing just because of who the coach was down the sideline.
A dangerous full length pass on the out of bounds to Day bounced around, but he gathered it to make it a 10-point lead at 95-85 with just over a minute left and Arkansas stole the inbounds pass on the following Duke possession.
The Hogs would add three more points to close it out 98-88, giving them attention similar to when this year's Razorback team took down No. 1 Auburn.
When the two teams met in the Final Four, kids all over Arkansas collected the Final Four basketballs at their local Pizza Huts. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the entire game was featured on those commemorative balls.
Painted on the front was a series of mountains. The final four was in Denver, where the altitude wasn't ideal for the style of non-stop run and gun for which the Razorbacks were so well known.
The game started similar to the first as Arkansas fell behind by 6-7 points for much of the first half. The Razorbacks were visibly slower the entire game, and oxygen tanks were needed as referenced by announce team.
Arkansas had a chance to take the lead at the half, but Mayberry came up short on a three. However, it was the foul by Hawkins on Laettner on the rebound with seconds remaining in the half that sent the future Olympian to the free throw line, killing the momentum of what had been a promising run by the Hogs to get back into the game.
Arkansas made a 25-8 run after falling behind by 11 in the second half and the Razorbacks' defense picked up as the Hogs took the lead midway through the second half. It felt like the preseason NIT all over again, but that extra burst that sank the Blue Devils in November wasn't there in the Rocky Mountains.
Duke dug back into the game off tough play by Laettner, who struggled with fouls all game, and the two went back and forth down the final stretch. The Hogs were winded for the first time all season as they fought against the thin mountain air, and the run that always came to put teams away never happened.
Credit, the starting center for Arkansas, fouled out with six minutes left, hampering Richardson's ability to substitute freely and often.
As the final four minutes ticked off the clock, tired legs and low oxygen caught up with the Hogs. At a time where the defensive pressure would usually pick up and the non-stop run game on offense would make teams quit, the patience of Krzyzewski to let the local typography do the work for his team paid off in the end.
A 1-point lead became a 97-83 Arkansas loss.
And while that team lost, the program didn't. At home watching was an all-star line-up that saw that team play all season long.
At home was a team buying into a coach and a culture from their couches. And on the court that day was a base of players who would pass that culture on directly to Scotty Thurman, Corey Beck, Corliss Williamson, Dwight Stewart and the rest of that future national championship team over the next couple of years.
The 1990 team could have done it. It could have won and had proven it on the floor.
And that team is a big reason why it was done a few years later.
The same holds true for this team. These Razorbacks can beat Duke and potentially play for a national championship.
But if somehow Krzyzewski finds a way to get to .500 against the Razorbacks and fulfill his final swan song, his end will potentially be looked back on as the beginning of another Arkansas dynasty.
And that starts with a gritty team, full of heart, built on defense and an unwillingness to quit trying to fully restore respect to the Arkansas program once again while convincing the country that their coach is one of the best in the game.
At home is an all-star line-up watching.
This group just doesn't want to wait until they show up to get the next national title.
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