Four Areas Where the Razorbacks Quieted Concerns Against Oklahoma

Performance against Sooners showed team much closer to becoming a contender

Author:
Kent Smith
Updated:
Dec 11, 2022 12:41 AM EST
Original:
Dec 10, 2022

In this story:

TULSA, Okla. – Arkansas teams under Eric Musselman always undergo a bit of a growth spurt in development as a team around this time of year.

However, the drastic decrease in boxes that needed to be checked before SEC play was exponential in an 88-78 win over Oklahoma at the BOK Center in Tulsa Saturday afternoon.

The was result was play that, if consistently replicated, will propel the Razorbacks into a list of roughly five teams with a legitimate shot at claiming a national championship.

Devo Has to Cut Down on 'Devo' Moments

Davonte Davis has been one of the most important players on the team in this first half of the season.

He has been the floor general while all the newbies took time to catch up. He also may be the most elite defender in the SEC and possibly all of college basketball.

His tenacity, endless energy and unmatched footwork making him a nightmare for opposing defenses.

However, the one thing that drives Musselman and, based on social media, Arkansas fans nuts about Davis is his propensity to something a little "extra" in ball handling or passing that looks insane when it works out, but leaves Mussleman about to chunk his Diet Coke bottle across the floor when it doesn't.

Multiple times the fourth-year Arkansas coach has groaned openly to the media about his desire for Davis to play within the game and be OK with the simple play in front of him rather than opting for flash.

On Saturday Davis was all substance.

His passes were clean, his shots were all what was called for in the situation and his defense was so spectacular that Oklahoma guards nearly tripped over themselves at the sight of him.

If this is the Davis Musselman is going to get the rest of the year, then a massive piece of the national championship run puzzle will be in place.

The Razorbacks Needs to Let the Highlight Reel Come to Them

A major flaw with this team out the gate was how in love it fell with its own athleticism.

The highlights filled the men's basketball Twitter page as fans awed at the dunk contest this team could put on, and the players soaked it all in.

However, it became a problem. The desire to be on Sportscenter overtook the desire to put a foot on their opponents' throats and go for the kill.

The Hogs got in the habit of forcing lobs and ill-advised dunk attempts, often putting Arkansas in bad spots that kept teams in games that shouldn't have been.

But against Oklahoma, the Razorbacks were a completely different team.

Perhaps it was the loss of forward Trevon Brazile that nudged them this way, but Arkansas moved the ball frequently looking for the right shot, which led to a much higher shot percentage.

Also, all that athleticism that was once expended on themselves was now used to wear down Oklahoma as the Razorbacks constantly slashed and moved. As the Sooners wore down, cuts from the back, front, and side doors alike opened up.

The highlights were still there as a result and had a much bigger impact.

They came naturally in the flow of the game, and when they did it no longer had the outcome of simply filling the players and fans with adrenaline. In addition was a certain demoralization and mental drain from facing exhaustion while Arkansas appeared to be growing in bounce and power.

By the middle of the second half, Sooners in foul trouble taking heavy breaths tipped the scale in the Razorbacks' favor for good.

Such patience and execution allowed Arkansas to shoot nearly 60 percent. Every player who touched the floor put up points, while only Jalen Graham failed to get an assist during his three minutes of play.

Every player on this team can put up points.

If teams continue to have to expend physical and mental energy trying to keep up with everyone Musselman runs onto the floor, Arkansas is going to have the edge in almost every game it plays.

Arkansas is Afraid to Get Its Hands Dirty

This has been a Razorback team that is afraid to show the tough, gritty side that has been the hallmark of Musselman's Arkansas teams up until this year.

The Hogs nearly got beat earlier this week by a vastly inferior team largely because it had no taste for the fight. Arkansas only had one attempt at a second chance baskets in each half against an overmatched UNC-Greensboro team.

No one wanted to be patient enough to work the ball into the post where the biggest mismatch resided and the guards weren't willing to bull their way through the lane and power their way either to a lay-up or the free throw line.

But that wasn't the case in Tulsa. The ball went into the paint and center Makhi Mitchell made Oklahoma's interior big men pay for not being able to match his combination of size and athleticism.

Working the ball inside opened other aspects of the game that kept the Sooners' heads spinning all day long. There were attacks coming from everywhere as the extra dimension of ball movement opened up everything.

When Porter Moser asked his guys to clog the middle, the Arkansas guards didn't shut it down and start throwing up quick threes over and over.

Instead, they started putting their heads down and barreled right through the Oklahoma crowd. Before long, center Tanner Groves, who was dominant last year, was in foul trouble and out of the game and the backdoor cuts and kick-outs opened up.

The Sooners wanted to play physical. They flat out shoved and banged their way into Arkansas on both ends.

It didn't matter because Arkansas came with a different attitude. They were in fight mode.

At one point Davis found himself having to guard a big man inside who had six inches and 55 pounds on him. Yet, he took the pounding while fronting him in the paint on defense and then putting taking his man fully on his back while blocking him out.

The game may have been in Tulsa, but the Hogs played like it was their yard and it was personal.

Loose balls, rebounds, balls that weren't loose, defenders. Arkansas went after everything with an aggression, attitude and toughness that just hasn't been there.

If this team can keep this kind of edge going forward, there are no mismatches.

The mental game was the area where Arkansas could be outmatched before. This style of play has a net gain of 12-20 points if Musselman can get this team to stick with it.

This Team Doesn't Generate Big Moment Time Outs

When Arkansas won its national championship, the thing that stood out most were those big moment timeouts.

The Hogs would get a rebound or steal, immediately launch into a fast break for a bucket and then instantly break into defensive pressure. The other team would panic and either push the ball up the floor out of control, make a bad pass, get trapped or throw it away.

Next thing you know, Arkansas was flying back down the floor for another easy basket, the building was rocking and the opposing team was in such disarray that its coach would have to call a time out to keep things from getting more out of hand than they already were.

This team has put together some good moments. They don't slouch on defense and can be electric on the offensive end.

They just hadn't strung together those signature suffocating moments that makes a team just want to quit and go home out of hopelessness.

On Saturday, it finally started happening. Two key sequences highlight this perfectly.

Around the 12 minute mark of the first half, direct from a page right out of old school Razorback basketball, Anthony Black responded to an Oklahoma fast break by pushing the ball quickly up the floor. He then hit Nick Smith in stride, who split the lane and lobbed it to Ricky Council for the reverse dunk.

Mission 1: Kill their momentum was complete.

By reacting the way he did, Black had created a frenzied pace. Now all Arkansas needed was for Oklahoma to get caught up in it and lose control. Sure enough, Oklahoma got lost in the pace, tossing a floor length pass that was picked off by Jalen Graham and flipped to Nick Smith who was already headed the other way.

The ball quickly found itself back in Council's hands who drew Grant Sherfield's second foul before the midway point of the first half. The TV timeout hit on the foul and a glimpse of the old 40 Minutes of Hell flashed up on the screen in modern form just before the commercial.

In the second half, the Hogs worked it in to Mitchell who abused his man with a powerful spin move for the basket. Immediately Black started stealthily creeping forward looking like a big cat about pounce.

The camera cut right as he did, so as he snatched the ball out of the air near the baseline and spun in the air, it felt even more chaotic because no one, including the Oklahoma players, had a clue what just happened.

With a twist of his body and a flick of his wrist he hit Smith for the dunk as the building exploded and Moser called a timeout before Arkansas could do it again.

It's been nearly 30 years since an Arkansas team looked like it could consistently execute 40 Minutes of Hell.

For at least one game, it has been done again.

If Arkansas starts making other teams lose their composure while making them feel like they are facing seven or eight players on each end of the court, this team can make a run.

Arkansas proved Saturday that it has been its own worst enemy all year long.

The ingredients are now there. The biggest obstacle to this team going forward are injuries and themselves.

And themselves is the bigger of the two.