Observations w/vid

Basketball Insider Board
#1

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.wholehogsports.com/news/2017 … -ole-miss/”>http://www.wholehogsports.com/news/2017/feb/18/5-observations-arkansas-98-80-win-over-ole-miss/</LINK_TEXT>

— Daryl’s big day. His best game of the year and first really big offensive outing in a while. Could also tell that he really tried on defense, which had been lacking. Arkansas guards are playing lights out, which is big come March.

— Hogs lit it up from 3. Made 12 of the season-high 29 3s taken, 2 games after attempting the previous season-high (26). Ole Miss kept playing zone and Arkansas made it pay. Also got 3s in transition. They were hunting 3s, which this team needs to do. Daryl, Dusty and Anton could combine for 20 3s attempted each game, with ease.

— Trey was great. Stuffed the stat sheet (8 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks, 3 steals in a season-high 24 minutes). He and Moses together worked nicely and they outscored OM 38-17 in 12:23 with both on the court. Gives the defense a lot of rim protection, especially when they sit back in the zone. Those 2 aren’t a perfect fit and aren’t suited for every matchup, which is the game-to-game decision Mike faces because they’re obviously his best 2 bigs. They combo’d to do a great job on Sebastian Saiz. He finished just 2-13. On offense, watch how much harder the guards cut and move when Trey is on the court/has the ball. They know he’ll get them the ball. Jaylen, in particular, has been great moving without the ball lately.

— The unselfishness and movement, ball and player, on offense was as good as it’s been all season in the second half. Pushing the ball whenever possible, making extra passes, turning down good shots to get great shots, cutting and paying off cuts with passes. There was some pretty basketball being played. Barford only got 1 assist, but he did a really nice job distributing the ball. If they can play that way more often, this offense will be so, so hard to stop.

— Moses played his most complete game of the year Wednesday, then outdid himself against Ole Miss. 14 points, 13 rebounds, 4 blocks. You could tell early that he came to play. He was all over the court hustling. Has 13 blocks in the 3 games since they started playing more zone. On offense, he did a nice job balancing looking for his shot and passing. He and Trey had some nice chemistry going with each other. Moses looked reinvigorated this last week.

— Stray thoughts including Hogs’ energy, the crowd, Jonathan Holmes’ jersey, more.

#2

20 assists. That is more like it.

#3

Great write up Jimmy. You have become my favorite sports writer. What a game! We are seeing a team mature, round out & starting to trust the system & each other right in front of our eyes. Their 2-3 match up zone has become suffocating for opponents. I know Anderson prefers man to man, but for various reasons this team plays zone defense exceptionally well compared to a leaking sieve in man to man. The only reasons I can think of to play man defense at this point is attempting to get better at it & keep opponents honest? This team must continue one game at a time approach. If it continues to do so & continues playing as it has, they should be flying high & very confident going into the Florida game. A win at Florida would be an approval stamp onto the NCAA Tourney entry form.

#4

You are so correct about the next game approach! Keeping the flow and winning
We should take Florida down at their place and I think that approval stamp won’t come from just that game. A winning streak going into the SEC tournament of 6 would be huge. Win 1 or 2 in the SEC tournament and maybe get a 6 or 7 seed

#5

Thanks, I really appreciate that.

Will be interesting to see how much he goes zone against upper-echelon teams. Played both ways yesterday and Ole Miss didn’t really hurt them. Against a team like Florida, I think he’ll have to be ready to shift to the zone early if Kasey Hill is carving them up again.

#6

The passing, cutting and level of connectivity was as good as it’s been against a good team all year. Very, very encouraging.

#7

You must be working late! Any news on Matten from Georgia whom left the Kentucky game?

#8

Ha, I’m a night owl. Reading all the reaction to the DeMarcus Cousins to New Orleans trade right now.

Last I saw on Maten was that he was out indefinitely but that the injury didn’t look like it would require surgery. No timetable provided so far.

#9

Sprained knee, should be back in a few weeks. I’m assuming (with our luck) in time for our game, or for the SECT

#10

Yea, my guess would be him returning for the SEC tournament, unless they win these next few games and have momentum going into the game with us. With that said, I always like teams full strength, guys tend to think they have an easy game when key players are missing, and don’t play as hard and lose, and the team short handed is the exact opposite they play even harder. I remember a couple years ago when we lost at home to LSU without Jordan Mickey, and we just recently lost at home to Vanderbilt without Matthew Fisher-Davis.

#11

Yes that Vandy reminder again! That was a very surprising loss especially the margin of the loss.

#12

I sure hope teams we are playing stop the tribute thing when we show up to play them. It woke up the OKST cowboys. It revived Misery temporarily and we did not recover until after we burped up another game to Vandy. Tough little time to be a his fan. It sure is nice to win!

#13

Vanderbilt lost four straight then won at Florida. Lost to us by 1, then beat Iowa State and won at Texas A&M. Lost to Ole Miss, beat us easily, lost by 20 at Missouri. Then beat the Aggies and Gamecocks.

When Vanderbilt is hot from outside they can beat anybody, it seems.

#14