Arkansas has beaten 4 quality teams to start the season, all have potential to make the tourney, yet, Arkansas isn’t rated anywhere in any of the polls. No RESPECT!! That being said, obviously North Carolina is a tremendous challenge. The key will be whether Gafford, Trey Thompson, and Dustin Thomas can rebound; especially not giving NC second chance opportunities, they’re traditionally one of the best in the nation on the boards. And obviously #2. Joel Berry II is one of the top guards in the nation, our defense will have to be tremendous against him. Arkansas is a team built for tournaments, after game one, the type of up tempo games they play is advantageous to them, so they have a good shot tomorrow against the champs…
They beat NC and they will start to be seen in a different light. If we can become a more disciplined team as far as shot selection, stay away from foul trouble and don’t become stagnant in our half court by standing around we could be a handful by tourney time. It’s very early but we are loaded with potential, great win and confidence builder for MA and team. WPS
Just ask yourself this simple question. Have the hogs ever had respect nationally lately? The Tar Heels game is the key to gain respect. Being ranked early in the season does you no good. Play the games and a lot of those teams ranked will fall. Misery won’t stay ranked Long and I don’t expect them to make the dance.
I’d rather earn a ranking than just get it by purely a guess.
The Hogs have the opportunity tomorrow to earn the respect they so think they deserve, they will find out exactly how they stack up against one of the blue bloods in college basketball.
Neither team is the same that played in the NCAA Tourney last season, but both have several returning players and some new pieces to add to the mix. We will find out if the Hogs have added enough to hang with the the big boys or not at this point of the early season. I hope that they win tomorrow, but if they do not, I hope they are able to fight and make a game of it for 40 minutes.
It will be important to put ball pressure on North Carolina’s guards the entire game and cause 15-20 turnovers and make points off of those turnovers.
It will also be necessary to play Daniel and Trey together for stretches in order to rebound, block some shots all the while staying out of foul trouble.
North Carolina has one 6’11 and two 6’10 guys down low so we have to make this an up and down game and use our our depth and athleticism to try and wear them down by the midway point of the second half.
Obviously, Macon and Barfield have to play up to their potential and Beard has to be a distributor while getting his baskets driving and not putting up to many jump shots, which isn’t his strength.
This is a game that Bailey and Hall could be factors with their ability to get into passing lanes by deflecting balls and creating turnovers.
Thomas needs to play within himself and do all the things that don’t fill up the stat sheet, but give meaningful minutes by getting rebounds, taking a charge and getting a few put back baskets.
Thompson and Gafford have to play smart and stay out of foul trouble while providing a presence on the boards, blocking some shots and Daniel needs to score 15-20 points.
We have to be able to get to the free throw line just as much as North Carolina and we need to shoot at least 75% when we do get to the free throw line.
I’m optimistic about our chances in this game, but I’m not overmelmingly confident.
Win or lose this team will be better for having laced up their sneakers against the defending National Champions this early in the season and should get better as the season goes, especially our younger players.
I’d love to see a victory tomorrow and just keep on winning throughout the remainder of our non conference campaign.
Go Hogs!
That’s a silly comment my friend. Mizzou is without arguably their best player for the season, but Cuonzo Martin is not Kim Anderson dude, that’s a man over there. We will have our hands full with that team… This is why Arkansas loses sometimes, our fans say silly, disrespectful, comments on message boards, Twitter, ESPN, etc…etc… about their opponents, sometimes even directly to them on Twitter, Facebook, which feeds them with motivation. Oh yeah, they can read too. You (((RESPECT))) EVERYONE, but FEAR NO ONE…
Yeah. I agree - we (all of us, regardless of our personal opinions of how smart our posts are) sometimes say silly and even disrepectful things. You find that on anyone’s board. You know that. Read the MSU board this morning … a team with 8 wins, headed to a decent bowl, but their fans want Mullen’s head this morning. Silly stuff.
That said, to suggest that ‘Arkansas loses sometimes’ because this silliness contributes anything to the outcomes of games … yeah … no. I won’t buy your offering that these athletes read this banter and that somehow motivates them to somehow play differently than how they would if they ignored this banter. Once the games tip off, these guys aren’t thinking about blogs written by us coach coaches. We like to THINK they do … but … no.
Rankings are meaningless at this point of the season. I personally am happy with this team so far and hope improvement does put them in a respected position when it counts.
AR has received votes in both the AP and Coaches (we would rank 39 and 33 respectively), as for the teams they’ve played:
Samford 1-4 (9th Southern)
Bucknell 2-4 (6th Patriot)
Fresno St 3-2 (7th in MW)
OU 4-1 (33, 39 exactly opposite of ours), (9th B12)
That’s probably reason we aren’t ranked. Now after today
UNC 4-0 (9,9 in both polls), (Tied 5th ACC)
Win/Lose against UNC we get:
Michigan St 3-1 (4,5 in polls), (8th B10)
UCONN 4-0 (3rd American)
Now, if we beat UNC and Mich St and aren’t in the Top 25, then we can scream no respect. As of right now, our wins aren’t that impressive (they could end up being extremely impressive, but not at the moment)
I don’t care about the polls yet, we’re good. We’ll be in the Top 20 or so real soon.
What I do have a problem with is our state, especially the Democrat-Gazette. I woke up this morning ready to see Gafford’s dunk on front of sport page, Wallys article about Hawgball and our rematch game against UNC. Nope! None of that. All I saw was our lousy fatass coach, and Wally’s article about the football games today, PATHETIC!!!
Our football program is terrible, Bielema for now is still our coach and who cares about football games around state when we play UNC today!!! All there was, was a little 2 paragraphs in top right corner of sports page about hoop. PATHETIC!!!
*If Bret was actually fired last night or we hired a new coach, I get it, front of sports page for 2 days. But none of that happened, it’s a lousy game that means absolutely nothing. The big news is our hoop team and their still playing 2nd fiddle to that fatass even when he’s not doing anything!!!
How do you expect us to get love in polls, when not even our own press makes our win over OU and UNC game a big deal!!!
So, what you’re saying, is that if we beat UNC today and Michigan St tomorrow, and FB loses to Missery, and Bret gets canned it he should still be the headline? Ain’t that the same thing, you’re complaining about them doing?
Say what? No bro, we just beat OU in basketball yesterday and play UNC today. That is a MUCH bigger deal than a piss poor football team playing it’s final game of year. WAY BIGGER!!
Thanks for the sanity
Same Hogs! They have trouble playing good defensive teams that force them into half court game. No surprise because that is what you get with CMA teams.
UNC is mauling us right now. Disappointed, but not surprised.
Macon was a non factor today and our front court not deep enough to handle the blue bloods of college basketball.
That’s why I told people to pump the brakes on their declarations of how great this team would be. Not saying they won’t be good, but nationally not so much.
We only have one player that will probably ever get drafted and he’s a freshman.
Hogs will probably finish 5th in the SEC.
Bull, poor shooting and foul trouble did us in. That’s not a stigma of MA teams.
Undisciplined play which includes bad shot selection and bad fouls did us in and I have seen it over and over with CMA teams.
Then you haven’t seen many games coached by CMA
Some people might say we’ve seen too many
Yes, we all know what you think.