FAYETTEVILLE. — In case you were wondering, there was a clear indicator of just how bad this Arkansas team really is this year. Andrew Hutchinson from Best of Arkansas Sports threw it out there, probably because they were running out of things to ask fast after a 90-68 loss at Florida on Saturday.
At halftime, the Razorbacks were 4-of-16 on layups and dunks and Hutch simply asked "how do you improve on that going forward." Eric Musselman's answer was about as straightforward and honest. Basketball coaches are so much better than football coaches with this. Sam Pittman often talks in a big circle, ends up back where he started and ended up saying nothing.
"I don't know if I can improve it," Musselman said. "Did we do drills because knew they went vertical really well? Absolutely we did. We had two different stations, even this morning. Did we work on it, did we talk about it, yeah."
Joseph Pinion and Layden Blocker seemed to stand out more than anybody else. Not for numbers, but because at least those two guys acted like they cared about. Both were trying while most of the others didn't seem particularly interested.
"Joseph took it in there and yeah, he might have missed one or two and might have missed one or two but he took it in there," Musselman said. "Layden took it in there and might have missed one or two but he went in there with authority. They tried to get into the body of the secondary defender. They didn't shoot gloaters, they tried to get to the rim."
It's almost like these guys are too hard-headed to listen to the coaches and even try to do it. Musselman hasn't forgotten how to coach after three straight Sweet 16 teams and making a couple of Elite Eight appearances. Is this a case of guys thinking they know more?
According to Bob Holt of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette after that, the final numbers were 10-of-28 on layups and 3-of-5 on dunks. That's pathetic on layups and the dunks sound terrible. I'm no kind of expert on dunks. You weren't allowed by rule to do that in a game in my day. Not that I could ever do that in that anyway. It always appeared to me to be more of a matter of physics and height than anything else.
"I can't teach making dunks and layups," Musselman said. "There's a lot of stuff I've got to do a better job with this group, but finishing around the rim, doing it with physicality is something we've got to get better at. At some point you've got to finish in there."
We get back to over-looking the basics. Players have to practice shooting primarily on their own, It's the first step in doing anything is be sure and practice the basics. Once you forget how to do those the right way, everything else seems to fall apart. It may be at that point for the Razorbacks right now.
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