Another Blowout: Hogs Can't Do Much of Anything at Florida
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Arkansas' problems continue. In three SEC games this season, the Razorbacks are now 0-3 with two of them being complete blowouts after a 90-68 loss to Florida on Saturday. The 10-point loss at Georgia felt like one. "We have a lot of holes in a lot of different areas," Eric Musselman said later.
The Razorbacks never led after the first media timeout at just under 16 minutes to go in the first half. It's been awhile since hopes and what appeared to be a much better team shooting has turned to ashes just two weeks into January. More importantly, there doesn't appear to be any answers.
Musselman is trying to shake things up. Long after the Gators had turned this one into a blowout in the second half, looking at the minutes played, after what jumps out is the amount of minutes played by Layden Blocker and Joseph Pinion. Or the complete disappearance of Keyon Minifield, who only played three minutes and the only stat he recorded was a field goal.
"Because they played hard we'll probably look to go to them earlier," Musselman said. "We'll play some young guys. That's one of the alternatives you go to when you already tried 15 different alternatives and none of them worked. Pinion's got heart and character and plays up to the level of his ability."
Offensively, the Hogs can't score consistently. Defensively, they can't can't stop anybody from scoring just about any way they want to do it. Inside, they're getting killed and shoved around all over the floor. Florida started off doing what they wanted and the Razorbacks didn't appear that interested in doing anything about it.
He even gave Jeremiah Davenport another start and got 13 points out of him in 25 minutes against the Gators. That's always a strange stat because you'd almost think the ball would have found a way to him by accident with those kinds of minutes.
"We needed rebounding from everybody," Musselman said. "The theme of the game was rebounding." That ended up not working out well, getting out-rebounded 48-31 by Florida. Especially when the Hogs had the ball. They got just 9 offensive rebounds and the Gators had 33 on defense.
"We're not playing," Musselman said. "We've been here four years and played super tough. We have not done that this year at all." He won't say it, but this team plays too soft way way too often and appear not to even be that interested. That includes Davonte "Devo" Davis, who only recorded two fouls on the stat line against Florida.
Musselman even tried playing a zone defense, something he's never done. "We haven't played zone at all since being in college," Musselman said. "You've got to be able to guard in your area and our inability to stop a 3."
Now they have a red-hot Texas A&M team coming into town that lit up Kentucky in overtime on Saturday. Maybe they'll have a hangover from that, but Musselman may figure he doesn't have many other options. He's tried just about everything else.
HOGS FEED:
ERIC MUSSELMAN SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS PROBLEM COMING WITH RAZORBACKS PUTTING THEM TOGETHER
"SNAXX" LIVES UP TO NAME WITH ACT OF KINDNESS
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