You Can See Hogs Starting to Come Together in Big Maui Win

Razorbacks blast Louisville, 80-54, behind Anthony Black's big night

Author:
Andy Hodges
Publish date:
Nov 21, 2022 8:04 PM EST

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — You're starting to see some Arkansas fans that jumped off the Muss Bus trying to get back on now.

The scramble is serious now after an 80-54 win over Louisiville in the Maui Invitational on Monday night that looked like some old Razorback teams.

And Hogs coach Eric Musselman told us before leaving for the islands the Cardinals were a really good team.

The biggest takeaway was freshman point guard Anthony Black's jaw-dropping 26-point night that was much larger than that.

Anthony Black-Maui — Arkansas Razorbacks Anthony Black in a big win over Louisville in the opening game of the Maui Invitational in Hawaii. (Taryn Parker / Maui Invitational)

Now we know he can shoot (9-of-11 with 3-of-5 three-pointers), six assists, three rebounds and two steals. You wonder if he threw those in just because he could. He also played really, really well on defense.

Yeah, it wasn't an SEC team but Louisville is a good team, Musselman told us and they were about four points away from being 3-0 coming into the game instead of 0-3.

The Hogs never trailed in the game and Musselman is now 19-0 in November.

He's obviously pounded home the emphasis on defense. The Cardinals shot just 37% from the floor and forced 22 turnovers, 16 in the second half.

At one point, the Hogs were nailing dunks so frequently when Jordan Walsh sank a layup it wouldn't have been surprising if Musselman hadn't yelled he was going to take him out from breaking up that run.

Jordan Walsh-Maui — Arkansas Razorbacks Jordan Walsh in a big win over Louisville in the opening game of the Maui Invitational in Hawaii. (Taryn Parker / Maui Invitational)

The Hogs had a 17-0 run at one point that included seven steals.

Ricky Council also got on a roll, scoring 15 points and four steals. Makhel Mitchell, who has been pretty quiet through the first few games of the year, had 12 points, six rebounds, three assists, two steals and blocked two shots in 20 minutes off the bench.

Tuesday's game will tell us more about this Razorback team.

They play No. 10 Creighton at 7 p.m. and should be a better matchup.

But they opened things in Hawaii with a flair and now everybody knows they have a point guard that can score.