Arkansas

[skyblade]

TUESDAY NOV 23,
9:30 P.M. ET
T-Mobile Center
ESPN2

Since Queens_NYC hasn't posted the game thread yet, figured I'd do the honors.

They have some skilled veteran guards, but they aren't deep. On Monday they really only played 7 players and that's been pretty much the norm for them throughout the season. Sometimes their 8th man (Trey Wade, transfer from Wichita State) gets more minutes, but I don't expect him to get more than 10 minutes.

Our advantage is going to be depth, especially on the interior. Only two of Arkansas' main 7 guys are taller than 6'6". One of them is 7'3", but he is fairly skinny and only averages 15 minutes. If we can brigade them on the interior and wear down their two bigs (or get one of them in foul trouble) I like our chances. Good luck guarding Lakhin with a guy who is 6'6", 210 lbs, though Lakhin is going to have to hold his own against a much smaller guy on the defensive end, so it will be an interesting battle.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Can’t wait. I’m hoping for a better start… and that these guys know what they can do when they play with intensity.

 

[Queens_NYC]

TUESDAY NOV 23,
9:30 P.M. ET
T-Mobile Center
ESPN2

Since Queens_NYC hasn't posted the game thread yet, figured I'd do the honors.

They have some skilled veteran guards, but they aren't deep. On Monday they really only played 7 players and that's been pretty much the norm for them throughout the season. Sometimes their 8th man (Trey Wade, transfer from Wichita State) gets more minutes, but I don't expect him to get more than 10 minutes.

Our advantage is going to be depth, especially on the interior. Only two of Arkansas' main 7 guys are taller than 6'6". One of them is 7'3", but he is fairly skinny and only averages 15 minutes. If we can brigade them on the interior and wear down their two bigs (or get one of them in foul trouble) I like our chances. Good luck guarding Lakhin with a guy who is 6'6", 210 lbs, though Lakhin is going to have to hold his own against a much smaller guy on the defensive end, so it will be an interesting battle.

Thanks, skyblade.

I was bogged down with holiday stuff and didn't want to create the game thread if I couldn't do a proper preview.

Won't be able to watch tonight but hope to catch the replay before work tomorrow.

Arkansas's a 5-point favorite so Vegas isn't entirely on our bangwagon yet.

 

[waterhead]

Sounds like another win to me

 

[skyblade]

Sounds like another win to me

It feels weird to say, given that I did not expect us to be this good early on. But I like our chances.

 

[skyblade]

Illinois beat Kansas State by 7 and it should have been more, but Cockburn was 1-5 from the FT line in the final minute.

Arkansas beat Kansas State by 8.

By the law of transference of scores, we should beat Arkansas by about 20.

Edit: Live score was wrong apparently. Oddly, the score in the Illinois vs Kansas State game was exactly the same as Arkansas Kansas State. Kansas State lost both games were 72-64.

 

[TheLivingLegend]

It's playing with house money. Winning would be great bonus.

 

[skyblade]

Arkansas following the scouting report, let Newman shoot it as much as he wants.

We are playing solid D so far, but need to work on getting more ball movement of O. Also need to tell Newman not to shoot the ball if there are over 10 seconds on the shot clock.

 

[skyblade]

Bad half for us on the offensive end. Davenport was bad, Lakhin was bad, MAW got 3 fouls and Saunders started to wear out because of it.

Yet we are somehow up 4 at half time.

 

[TheLivingLegend]

We are getting abused on the boards.

 

[TheLivingLegend]

I've seen enough. Newman can't play.

 

[sedziobs]

I still don't understand why MAW leads the team in minutes. He's been torched several times on defense, and he contributes nothing on offense unless he has a wide open three.

DDJ and Saunders are playing great.

 

[TheLivingLegend]

Don't deserve to win. Horrible rebounding.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Can’t rebound

 

[Bcatfollower]

Ugh

 

[TheLivingLegend]

Outworked. Completely outworked.

Very dissapointed in this effort

 

[Lawrugby]

Incredible - we came in unranked, beat a top 15 by 20 and took the champion to the mat. This shows that we are going to have a great conference season and defy all expectations. Had Davenport not had a freaky bad night we probably would have won handily. This tournament is a great step forward for the team.

 

[skyblade]

We were on the receiving end of some terrible referring, got dominated on the glass and Davenport (and possibly Lakhin) had what will probably be his worst game of the year. Plus we missed at least 3 easy open bunnies. None the less we still had a chance at the end of the game.

Hopefully we learn from this, we are a very good team, but there's plenty to improve. Specifically rebounding and boxing out. I'm sure Wes Miller is going to find a way to fix it.

I wouldn't mind seeing less of Newman and more of Madsen or Hensley (or JD at the 3). Newman made a couple threes, but couldn't hit FT's and is basically ignored by the opposing defense. They dare him to make a play and more often than not he can't.

 

[cincrulz11]

The refs really added time to the end for those free throws in a 5 point game.

The line was 5


Just sayin

 

[cincrulz11]

I still don't understand why MAW leads the team in minutes. He's been torched several times on defense, and he contributes nothing on offense unless he has a wide open three.

DDJ and Saunders are playing great.

Right there with you. He doesn’t rebound, doesn’t get steals or blocks. Gets blown by. Can’t create a shot. And he’s picked up a bad habit of not taking the wide open 3 but taking 2 dibbles to the side and shooting it off the dribble.