“I’ve never in my entire coaching career seen so many missed layups,” Eric Musselman said.
On Arkansas’ struggles to score at the rim, which were magnified Saturday in its 81-68 home loss to Missouri:
Perhaps, in practice he split the team into two groups at opposite ends of the floor for 1/2 hour on one end doing layup drills and the other end shooting free throws.
Clean up those two areas and we win the game today!
Mercy
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Can’t shoot 20 something percent and win. And get out rebounded by 15. And only have 7 assists?
How do you shoot 27 percent at home?
This is the kind of game, Hogs needed a crowd of 13,000. As Clay said, this year road games are not like they used to be. The degree of difficulty in winning a road game is cut about in half,
A big difference between this game and Auburn game was that Auburn let us play our game, Missouri did not. Tigers controlled the tempo. A big home crowd may have changed that.
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Pj is exactly right. A big crowd would have helped for sure. I also think having our most experienced player being off his game didn’t help.
Place the loss on no crowd if you want but if you can’t finish around the rim against the likes of UCA, Missouri is definitely gonna have you shooting layups with your eyes closed out of fear of contact.
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This.
Coach Richardson used to stand under the basket with a big pad, and he would knock the piss out of guys coming in soft for layups. Knocked them smooth on their tail. There is no way a major college basketball team should shoot 8-30 at point blank range. None. It’s a matter of toughness and concentration. I get why it’s driven Muss almost stark raving nuts.
Musselman has the same drills. I think all college teams use that drill, Jeremy. Don Nixon, my high school coach at LR Central, used it in 1969. I would be surprised if it’s not used by most high schools.
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OMG, don’t take everything so seriously!
Do you honestly think that I or anyone else on this forum needs to tell CSM how to coach his team.
First loss, we didn’t shoot well! It Happens.
Yes, even high schools use that drill. I think it is a matter of “you can’t teach new tricks to an old dog”. There are exceptions, but liking contact or not is part of a player’s DNA right from junior high days.
I also think Muss may have to change his apparent love affair with his analytics driven stretch bigs.
Vance and Smith both transferred because they fancied themselves as outside shooters who didn’t care for playing inside on their former teams. Vanover can’t play inside.
Williams shot multiple 3s today (four of his six shot were 3s).
It’s ok to have outside shooting ability, but if you crave that over a player who can get you a much needed bucket down low, you’re asking for trouble in grind it out games.
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Maybe Muss needs to ask Coach Richardson to come pad up for a few practices, Clay. I don’t remember layups or toughness ever being a problem for our teams. I don’t have any experience with any other coaches. Coach Richardson was the only one I ever worked for, and our players had to concentrate to finish when “The Bear” hit em. Don’t forget Corliss almost set a Final Four record for FG%. A lot of that had to do with Coach and that pad. Oh, and I almost forgot, Coach Richardson’s blocking pad was made of concrete and barbed wire and endorsed by Chuck Norris. 
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Hogs got out hustled and out coached today. Mizzou had a game plan and executed it. If the hogs had a game plan it wasn’t executed. This is what I was afraid would happen at Auburn because of our weak non conference schedule. The big man for Mizzou controlled the lane and our guards could not control the dribbler. When their guards beat their man on the dribble it forced Hanover and whomever was guarding Tilmon to help. As a result, Tilmon either got the lob pass or was left alone to get the rebound. Even at that, if we shoot 30 percent from the 3 point line we win the game. Most of those shots were uncontested.
Well, we witnessed that yesterday, not easy to do. Even more head scratching was the number of turnovers we created and still couldn’t make a shot.
Believe it or not: this is solace to me. That was one of the most frustratingly awkward games I’ve seen in some time. It reminded me of my NY Knicks in game 7 of the finals against the Rockets. I just kept saying, “there’s no way they keep missing…oh, there’s another whiff.”
Edit: solace in the fact that this performance was a once in a decade head-scratcher–and we were still in the game for most of the time.
Amen on your edit jmetsrule.
Apparently, some of our fans don’t realize these kids aren’t robots that can be programmed to play their best every game.
One of Nolan’s best teams once lost to a group of teen agers from Puerto Rico. Bad games happen
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The Hogs loss to UALR in baseball comes to mind. They crushed us 17-7. We could do nothing right.
I’ve wondered exactly the same thing.
Muss has forgotten more basketball than most of us will ever know.
I have had concern about not having physical 3-5 recruits as much in his early tenure - and seen more outside shooters.
Kept thinking, well, this kind of lineup must be the way of the game now, but still worried for road games or close games if not some power baskets inside from bodies other than guard drives.
Williams is young but might be able to help and shows promise. Henderson may help defensively still and maybe some others can step up.
Just one loss and season is young still.
And we likely don’t shoot that poorly ever again in any case.