I’m astounded how we are still dishing on Ricky. Yes, he missed 2 or 3 bad shots that he took. I’ll almost guarantee you Muss is really happy about Ricky’s game tonight. Tonight, Ricky had 6 rebounds, 7 assists, a steal and only 1 TO. All 3 of those categories have been missed more than his points. He also had 10 points with 2 of 3 free throws.
He missed 3, 3-point shots, but the first 2 were good shots and just skimmed the inside portion of the rim. His scoring will come back, but with AB and especially Devo’s scoring of late, those other 3 things are more important to this team winning than his scoring.
The entire team has to develop a bit more killer instinct. Just cannot come out flat in either the start of the game or, like tonight, out of the half. Start playing like they did in the first half tonight, for a complete game, and we can beat anyone in the country, including Bama.
I love you, Larry, but you watched a different game than I did. Ricky absolutely killed the flow in the 2nd half. WAY too much dribbling and 1 on 1 play.
Sometimes numbers lie.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Ricky, but he is pressing. He played superb in the first half in a wide open game, but he was a black hole in the 2nd half.
We are gonna need him to play a lot better in Waco.
He’s night and day when he’s playing against man-to-man than against the zone.
He had a little tougher game in the second half against his zone because he was trying a little too hard to make a play because nobody else sure as heck wasn’t making any.
I expect him to come out Saturday and score about 20 I really do he is strong with the ball to the glass and excellent free throw shooter and a beautiful mid-range jumper most of the time.
It’s unusual, but I totally disagree. I went back and looked at all the plays at the start of the 2nd half.
The first 6 1/2 minutes of the 2nd half, the Hogs scored 4 points. All 4 were by Ricky. 1 FG and 2-2 free throws. He also missed 2 shots. The other players missed every shot they took, which weren’t many because of all the TOs. LSU went on a 15-2 run before Ricky hit those 2 free throws. Devo (who played a fantastic game) had 2 TOs and AB had 2 TOs.
Our entire team played awful defense during that time. LSU started the half with 3 straight open lay-ups, while the Hogs started with 2 straight TOs. LSU, in their first 5 possessions, made those 3 lay-ups and an open 3 point shot. The Hogs had zero energy on defense for the first 7 or 8 minutes of the 2nd half.
Ricky and his 10 points and 7 assists (at least 2 were on open 3s) was involved in 26 of our 60 points. Nearly half of our total. It’s hard for me to see why you put the blame for our bad 12 or so minutes of play in the 2nd half on Ricky. That poor 2nd half play was on our TOs and our lack of defense. Even the announcers were talking about all our careless TOs. You can’t score points when half your possessions were TOs in that time span. Once again, Ricky had 1 all game.
We won by 20, so I’m not sure why we’re trying to blame any single player for anything. Especially a player who was involved in nearly half of our points.
No worries, Larry. We can agree to disagree sometimes. Yes, we were sloppy and uninspired in the 2nd half, but the ball kept sticking with
Ricky when they went to zone.
Ricky might have only been credited with only one turnover, but some of his passes and shots might as well have been turnovers.
Doesn’t matter. We won, but we still are gonna need Ricky to be better Saturday.
On first look (live) and second look *replay) RC4 when flat to start the second half as did everyone else. LSU came out in a zone that put Arkansas into a sleepwalking trance. For whatever reason (learning?) Muss let the Hogs deflate into a dribble drive without much rotation beyond movement at the top of the key. Finally, with a Devo’s drive at the 10:00 mark Arkansas seem to re-engage somewhat, still only scoring 12 points in the final 10 minutes. It was good to see more energy and movement. AB’s 3 point shot was the best illustration of scoring from movement opening his shot from the corner. Graham also reentered the game with he and Mitchell scoring on uncovered dunks with rim passes. The last 3 1/2 minutes had a total of three combine points as the teams trade rebounds.