What Questions Can Be Answered for Hogs Against Missouri?

While fans think they have John Calipari's Hogs team pegged, there are still things to be revealed in Columbia this evening

Arkansas Razorbacks coach John Calipari looks on in a game against the Florida Gators at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark. / Nilsen Roman-Hogs on SI Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — With Arkansas stuck in a rut of perpetual losing in the SEC, there really aren't a whole lot of questions being asked about this team other than how big will the final deficit be.

However, while fans seemed to have become too desensitized to have questions that bubble up in their in-person and online conversations, there are still several quality questions that need to be answered during today's 5 p.m. game between the Razorbacks and Missouri.

Can John Calipari Finally Get His First SEC Win?

Arkansas Razorbacks coach John Calipari calls out a play during a game with the Florida Gators at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark. / Nilsen Roman-Hogs on SI Images

In a few weeks Calipari will turn 66, and while he has traveled the world and seen and done more than the average man, the one thing he has in common with pretty much everyone on the planet is he has never won an SEC game as Arkansas head coach.

Looking at the schedule ahead, it's difficult to imagine that fact moving from the part of the Venn diagram that includes all of our readers to the side with a handful of names like Eric Musselman, Mike Anderson and Nolan Richardson. However, the constant need for the national spotlight has put Calipari in a situation where he needs to somehow change that with a win more than any Razorbacks coach of the SEC era.

Can Trevon Brazile Convince Arkansas to Get Up for Missouri?

Trevon Brazile (4) during Arkansas' 75-60 win over UTSA inside Bud Walton Arena. / Nilsen Roman - Hogs On SI Image

Missouri in Columbia isn't a good place to start trying to scrape together that first win for Calipari. The Tigers are way better than anyone expected.

They are coming off an upset win of a Florida team that blasted No. 1 Tennessee in historic fashion before toying with Arkansas for a bit before easily putting them away down the stretch. The best chance for the Razorbacks to pull the shocker is if they get a massive emotional boost that carries the length of the game.

In normal circumstances that wouldn't be a hard thing to pull out against teams like Missouri and Vanderbilt. They have traditionally been chippy rock fights with the constant threat of a fight breaking out.

While the Tigers have traditionally not moved the needle in other sports, they have been a rival for the Hogs on the basketball court dating back to the days of those classic Norm Stewart showdowns against Richardson.

However, with teams being wiped away on a yearly basis in the portal era, the idea of a rivalry seems antiquated. There need to be people on the team who have been through it who have bad feelings toward things that went on along the way.

In this case, Brazile, who began his career as a scrawny, yet promising freshman at Missouri, is the only player who has ever seen the Tigers and Razorbacks play in person. Injuries have kept him out of games.

Now in his fourth season between the two teams, he has only logged 30 total minutes in an Arkansas-Missouri game and 26 of those came in that freshman year with Mizzou. Other than four minutes last season, he has denied Tigers fans the opportunity to truly despise him for leaving to join Musselman in 2022.

Still, he's their best bet for becoming emotinally invested. Since he sat out the entire game the first time he traveled to Columbia, this is first and last opportunity to show out in front of his former fans.

Between that and being the only person who can explain to the rest of the team what games have been like between the two programs, there's a sliver of hope the Hogs can get an emotional surge.

Can Nelly Davis Put Together Two Halves?

Arkansas Razorbacks guard Johnell Davis (1) goes up for a layup past Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners forward Jaquan Scott (2) during the second half at Bud Walton Arena. Arkansas won 75-60. / Brett Rojo-Imagn Images

Arkansas fans give him a hard time, but in the first half against LSU, he filled up the box score. That included a team-high 10 points where he knocked down a pair of threes as part of an efficient shooting run.

Unfortunately for Arkansas, he couldn't find an extra basket or two in the second half. However, a pattern for how to most effectively use him became clear. Davis didn't forget how to be a basketball player after dominating on the national stage at Florida Atlantic so well he became the nation's most coveted transfer.

Being an elite scorer is buried in his DNA. What showed earlier this week is how naturally it flows out of him when allowed.

Davis is a classic case of a player going somewhere new and simply overthinking things. When he gets the ball in his hands with a moment to stop and process what he thinks Calipari wants him to do, bad things happen that frustrate both him and the fans.

However, when he's given the ball in the middle of a basketball move where he doesn't have time to think and his natural instincts take over, he's one of the best scorers on the team at the moment. An active Davis who is just playing the game is as dangerous on offense as it gets.

Whether Arkansas will take care to utilize him that way will show itself pretty fast this evening.

Will Fans Watch?

Arkansas Razorbacks fans raise their hands for the “calling of the Hogs” during the second half against the Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners at Bud Walton Arena. Arkansas won 75-60. / Brett Rojo-Imagn Images

5 p.m. on a Saturday night is an awkward time for a basketball game. It's at that perfect time where people are getting ready to go do something else.

Arkansas fans have never connected with this team and the team has never connected with them. Both are strangers to one another.

What do fans know about Davis? Oh, he's that Florida Atlantic kid.

What about Jonas Aidoo? Oh, he's the big man from Tennessee.

What about DJ Wagner? That's the guard from Kentucky.

And Adou Theiro? That's the one that plays hard. He's also a Wildcat.

Outside of the prime list of players fans fail to think of as Razorbacks, there's a massive chunk of this roster whose names they've never heard. This team has been playing non-stop for four months and most Arkansas fans can't tell you whether Ronni Brown or Jaden Karuletwa is an actual person on the team.

For the record, Karuletwa is the Razorback. Brown made foley sounds for the movie "Wild Robot."

Or is it the other way around? Most of you don't know either way. There are four other names of actual Arkansas players that could have been used and no one would have known then either.

Fans don't know these players as people and the players don't know the fans. One die-hard Hogs fan mentioned the other day that one of the Razorbacks gestured to the crowd after a made basket and it clicked that it was the first time all year she could recall that happening.

Because of the vast disconnect and strange start time, the game may be on in the background while people are getting ready to go out to dinner, and some may glance over a shoulder to check out the score if its on a TV in the restaurant later, but a lot of people are going to catch the score after a night out on the town and have a brief response on social media, but that's it.

So many fans are shutting it down that unless Missouri carries the night from a viewers standpoint on their end or enough Kentucky fans who enjoy seeing Calipari's misery play out tune in, it's likely to be a ratings bomb.

HOGS FEED:

• Arkansas offers 2026 defensive lineman out of Louisiana

• Bottom line to coaching confidence still not known for Hogs

• Missouri giving Razorbacks completely different look Saturday

• Battle-tested Calipari faces toughest fight yet with 0-4 Razorbacks

• Missouri has several reasons why Hogs likely to lose again

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