One-point loss doesn’t mean all is lost, despite ‘lunatic fringe’ rants

All it took for Arkansas’ lunatic fringe of the fan base to come unhinged was a one-point loss to a Western Kentucky team Saturday that no one should have expected to be a blowout.

The Hilltoppers are coached by Rick Stansbury, who has beaten the Razorbacks in Bud Walton Arena when he was coaching Mississippi State, and Mike Anderson kept saying all week they had a good team.

As usual, the bi-polar segment of the fan base ignored that. They expected a blowout.

In case you’re wondering what comprises the bi-polar lunatic fringe, it’s the fans that determine the entire fate of the program based on each individual play in football, each possession in basketball and every at-bat in baseball.

Not just that game. For them, it’s the entire fate of the program. I’ve seen it when someone pointed it out to me on a message board during a football game years ago (I don’t read the message boards so I wasn’t aware … and I’m told nothing has changed).

During one series of a single game, the Hogs’ football program was destined to challenge Alabama, would never win that game, the coach should be fired along with every assistant, the coach didn’t have a clue what was happening, the coach was a horrible playcaller, the football program was doomed, the coach would lead the Hogs to greatness, they would never make another bowl game and this was the greatest team in history.

All of that from three people in one series during a season when Arkansas won 11 games.

It’s that way in basketball, too. Throw in a couple of the internet sociopathic trolls and the lunatic fringe just loses it completely. Those sociopaths are called that because that is precisely the definition of people who delight in the pain of others; they enjoy Hog fans’ pain when they lose.

But back to this basketball team.

If you thought this is a team that is going to rekindle the early 1990’s, well, you probably had unrealistic expectations.

This team has seven freshmen and a redshirt freshman not even cleared to play. There are only two juniors and that’s counting walk-on Jonathan Holmes, bless his heart.

What did you think was going to happen this year?

Western Kentucky came in with a big man in Charles Bassey, a Nigerian native who wasn’t going to be overwhelmed by Daniel Gafford.

Throw in the game was played with just two officials because a third got rear-ended on his way to the game. A lot of the fans think that’s something the remaining pair did to the Hogs, but the truth is they did the best they could with what they had to work with.

Anderson said later he had no comment on the officiating. Stansbury said it was just one less official to complain about.

The truth was the Hilltoppers made the plays when it counted and the Hogs didn’t.

“In the end, they wanted it more than we did,” Anderson said later.

It happens with a young team and, no, one game shouldn’t cause everybody to jump to conclusions. Anderson’s teams usually do pretty well with things the longer the season plays out.

“This is another learning curve,” he said.

He will again make free throws a priority. The Hogs were 9-of-16 from the line Saturday, which is a miserable 56.3 percent.

Anderson wasn’t happy with that, but sent a message to his team with the media after the game that likely was pointed out much stronger in the locker room.

“Your want-to has to be much, much bigger and better than theirs,” he said.

He wasn’t sugar-coating anything.

“It was the opposite of how we’ve been playing,” Anderson said. “Defensively, I thought it was one of our worst performances.”

Usually after games like this, Anderson’s teams have bounced back with a strong performance.

With finals this week, they won’t play another game until Saturday in North Little Rock against Texas-San Antonio.

They should be better.

Despite what you’ll hear for a week from that lunatic fringe.

This team will be okay.