South Carolina is a great defensive team, but not much else. Their offense isn’t that bad, but their ENTIRE offense is based around Silva. He’s their leading scorer, rebounder, 3 point shooter, and almost free throw shooter. Stop Silva and you stop SC. SC isn’t a good 3 point shooting team, but neither were the last two teams and both won the game either on spurts of 3’s or had a field day at 3, so who knows. SC is also not a good FT shooting team.
Offensively we have got to spread SC out. SC defense thrives on boxing you in and forcing you to take a bad shot or turning the ball over. So the fact that our 4’s tend to roam around the perimeter might work to our advantage this game. It would be interesting to see a lineup with 3 shooters and Hall at the 4, just to give us a 4 that isn’t terrible at shooting the 3, with Gafford in the middle. Or even start 4 shooters and force SC to clear the middle for fear of leaving an open shooter, with Gafford one on one with Silva. Just a thought. Normally, I would say attack the rim against most of our opponents, but with SC, you have to be opportunistic. They will pounce on any throw to our big men or drivers to the basket. So shooters and kick outs will be important. Because of their defense, I don’t know how well Gafford or Thompson will do down low, but I was happy to see Gafford finally break out the last 10 minutes of the LSU game.
Defensively, guard the 3 and Silva. Every statistic known to man shows teams shouldn’t be killing us on 3’s, but it seems it happens at some point during a game, so I give up on trying to figure that out. And I stated before why Silva should be our biggest target.
the biggest thing we need to get from this game is some momentum. if we can hold serve at home against SC and Vandy, maybe, just maybe we can get the ball rolling down hill. the road game at Ole Miss is by far the most winnable of the 3 left so its vital to win. then a win a Bama or MO will be icing on cake if we can somehow pull one of those out, not sure we can the way we’ve been looking. the rest of schedule is tough to say least, but it presents an opportunity to cement the team into the NCAA tourney. right now i’m just hoping we can get into the tourney, because if we get in we are as dangerous as anyone in country if we get hot shooting.
One thing Arkansas has to do is keep Chris Silva off the free throw line. Cheap fouls could be a killer. He’s shot more than TWO HUNDRED free throws this year, which places him third nationally. Think we’ll see Arkansas rotate different guys on him and mix up looks.
Frank Booker is their top 3-point shooter at 40 percent. Got to keep up with him, but two others also shoot it better than 40 percent from deep. Recognize shooters, rotate properly and limit offensive rebounds. That’ll be huge.
We will know by the 5 minute mark how this game will end! If the hogs fail to play defense they will get beat. I wonder which gamecock player is going to hit 5 or more uncontested 3’s tonight!
Macon made a comment last week there’s wasn’t a sense of urgency. If he plays like that tonight then it’s bad news for the hogs.
There are no easy wins left for this bunch.
It’s time to either start playing ball on both ends of the court or start planning for next year.
Hogs did what they had to do and that was win. I saw some good and some bad tonight. Number 22 needs more playing time along with #23 and #2 and #5 need less along with Beard.
I agree with Gabe. He rebounded and didn’t try to take wild shots. Eventually he will have to show he can score.
CJ Jones hustled and played hard. He made a couple of shots off the dribble.
Bailey hustles. He fouls a lot and needs to play defense without fouling.
Cook that’s him either he is hot or cold no in between he has made some big plays for the team this year and last year.
Our youth is our future, our zone may be the ticket down the stretch. CMA did a good job with the line up tonight in my opinion, much needed dominant win! WPS
Nice to get the home win tonight as we should against South Carolina, now on to see if we can sustain some momentum this weekend against Vanderbilt.
I certainly would think that we will be able to pick up another Home win this weekend and get us to .500 in conference once again.
At that point, we will find out just how bad these kids want to secure a post season birth over the final six games.
Will they respond to finish over, under or break even at .500 for the conference?
I certainly wish for the best and we will all know in a few weeks.
Our youth provided energy on defense and rebounding. The youth will have to help for the hogs to win. I thought Bardford and Macon took over this game on the offensive end. That’s where they failed in the last 2 games.
They need to value each possession.
Our defense was solid last night and down right impressive in the second half. SC isn’t a good offensive team, but to completely shut down Silva I thought was impressive. All the top teams in the SEC couldn’t do that, but our boys did. Silva had 8 points last night and 6 of them came at the free throw line. SC did shoot better than their average at the line last night, but luckily we got to the line more than they did. SC got their average in 3’s, which I can sadly say is an improvement for our defense over the last few games.
Offensively, I was shocked at how we took it to them and mostly got what we wanted. Drives to the basket and Gafford/Thompson getting good post ups down low. Good distribution of points from where they got points to who was making them. Barford/Macon did their thing. Gafford’s getting his swagger back a little. Thompson is still producing. What about Osabuohien! Still very raw and needs work, but he’ll get in there and fight. He’ll deliver a punch and take one for the team too. I thought it was telling the MA started Bailey and had Osabuohien come in to replace Bailey instead of Cook/Thomas. Thomas didn’t even play. Jones did well and expanded his game a little.
Overall, a very good well rounded game for the Razorbacks. Made some silly turnovers, but I like the aggression against a very good defensive team.
Officials were horrible to both teams. The thing that makes me the most angry is the traveling calls. They always seem to nail us for traveling(especially Barford) but never seem to call opposing teams for it. I mean, one possession Silva caught the ball, turned on this pivot foot, moved his pivot foot(travel), moved his other foot back, then shuffled both feet, while never dribbling the ball. NO CALL! I mean come on.
i was particularly pleased with some of the new lineup combos used by MA tonight. one of those was very productive both offensively and defensively, so i would hope we see it more in future. the lineup was Barford, Hall, Jones, Bailey, Thompson. of the 3 sr guards i believe Barford is the best defender, though sometimes he doesnt have hands up contesting shots at all times. Hall is easily our best defender on team. Jones has come a long way, Bailey is aggressive defensively and on the glass. not to take away from Gafford defensively, but Thompson is better at this time at post defense simply because he is smarter about not picking up cheap fouls and doesnt get out of position as much. granted he is suspect, when his man screens the ball and he has to switch. i would think you could easily switch Bailey with #22 and get little to no dropoff. #22 really played inspired ball last night, you could tell his focus was mostly on the defensive end and on the glass, which we need more of. was also pleased that Jones hit 3 jumpers going to the basket, he could make a living with a pump fake, one dribble, pull up jumper. i guess we will see if this gets ball rolling and we carry the momentum into Vandy and even into road game in Oxford.