FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – There has been a general perception that since Arkansas forward Trevon Brazile went out with an undisclosed injury that Makhi Mitchell and Jalen Graham have stepped up their games to the point where the Razorbacks are actually better than they were before the injury.
Certainly the record book indicates this might be the case. Arkansas is 2-2 in its last four games and had a legitimate shot to beat Kentucky after leading most of the way before running out of gas in the end. However, the true story can easily be told through statistics.
So, let's take a look at the numbers for Mitchell and Graham. First, there has to be a baseline which can be easily gathered from the last four games Brazile played.
That stretch runs from the Razorbacks' first game against Georgia through the South Carolina game. The results weren't that great.
The pair combined for 33 points, 17 rebounds and 11 blocks. During the win over Texas A&M, they combined for 0 points, 0 rebounds and 1 block.
That's a strong contrast to the last four games. Mitchell and Graham have combined for 105 points, 45 rebounds and 13 blocks.
That's over a 300% jump in scoring, nearly 300% in rebounds and a slight increase in blocks. The highlight was 32 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks against Missouri.
Of course, the major argument against those numbers is Brazile ate up a ton of minutes, so he also theoretically should have had a lot of the missing stats from Graham and Mitchell's earlier four games. It is true that Brazile soaked up a lot of playing time, but adding his stats in didn't move the needle much.
At no point in Brazile's last four games did he break double digits in either rebounds or points and he only had two blocks. In all, over that stretch, he chipped in 27 points and 24 rebounds.
That extends the overall combined stats to 60 points, 14 rebounds and 13 blocks. That's still only about half the point production and roughly half the rebounds. So, essentially, once Musselman started trusting Mitchell and Graham, the pair more or less doubled production over the three-man combination with Brazile running the lead in minutes.
So, if fans are looking for help understanding why Arkansas suddenly looks a lot better, it's the production Musselman is getting from his big men. Whether that's a reflection of Brazile is up in the air because there definitely seems to be a different light on with Mitchell than before Brazile went down to injury.
The only thing that can be said for certain is, yes, Arkansas has been better on the stat sheet and in the win column without him in the line-up.
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