Briles’ handling at QB spot, offense, will tell us if lack of talent an issue
Sam Pittman has probably spent most waking moments since taking over as Arkansas’ football coach recruiting either players or — maybe more importantly — assistant coaches.
Most feel he’s done a pretty fair job at that getting Barry Odom for the defense and Kendal Briles on the offensive side of things.
Both will inherit probably more talent than even a lot of Razorback fans don’t want to admit is on the team. If Chad Morris did anything positive it was redshirting so many talented freshmen off last year’s recruiting class.
Pittman has been around long enough to know he can compensate for that by developing them and keeping them around. There is a natural rate of players leaving for whatever reason, especially with the transfer portal these days.
The Hogs haven’t had any sort of consistent coaching in since the 2015 season. It’s not a coincidence that’s about the time Pittman had all he could take of Bret Bielema’s ego and half-hearted approach to things.
This roster isn’t 4-20 bad.
No, that doesn’t mean this team could have contended for even the SEC West title but I had a longtime SEC coach tell me one time a few years ago that any team in the league should be able to win one game a season — even by accident — unless he doesn’t know how to win.
It’s interesting to note that’s not always a terminal affliction because the SEC coach being discussed at the time was Ed Orgeron, who managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on several occasions in 2007 before getting canned.
As Bill Belichick and Nick Saban discussed on an HBO special that was like crack for football fans, they agreed that great players simply can’t overcome bad coaching. It wasn’t hard to wonder if they had Arkansas in mind when they said that.
The guess here is we’re going to find out if those highly-touted freshmen can be coached up to play their ability.
Especially at quarterback.
Freshman K.J. Jefferson was rated as the best high school quarterback in Mississippi and the guy rated behind him ended up starting at Ole Miss for much of this past season.
It was hard to tell if Jefferson’s inconsistency in the limited practice time the media could see was due to his talent or just bad coaching. Morris seemed more intent on doing things halfway in a hurry than just getting it right, then doing that faster.
Folks in Dallas told me when Joe Craddock was hired as offensive coordinator that was going to get Morris fired eventually.
That turned out to be two years and it may be awhile before we find out if it was John Chavis’ coaching or Morris over-ruling decisions on that side of the ball that led to the Hogs not being able to stop anybody.
But Jefferson and how Briles handles him is going to be interesting to watch. The offensive line will be improved almost immediately just from quality coaching.
This is going to be an interesting spring practice from that standpoint. Briles’ reputation indicates we’ll know pretty quickly if Jefferson is the real deal or not.
With bowl games winding down Pittman will begin completing his staff. There is chatter about possibly a current Georgia assistant joining the Hogs and it’s a good bet that’s been the delay in putting a staff together.
That means, of course, Pittman is looking for guys that know how to win.
Despite starting 12-1, Neighbors ‘still worried’ about things heading into SEC opener
Arkansas coach Mike Neighbors talked Thursday after practice and said despite the hot start during the non-conference games, he listed all the things he’s worried about before the league opener against Texas A&M on Thursday night.
Joe shares SEC Player of Week honors after big game at Indiana
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas sophomore Isaiah Joe was selected the SEC Co-Player of the Week after leading the 11-1 Razorbacks to a win at Indiana. Joe shared the honor with Kentucky’s Nick Richards.
Joe scored 24 points and added five rebounds as the Razorbacks claimed their first ever road win at a Big Ten member (now 1-7).
• Joe played all 20 minutes of the second half and scored 18 points in the period. He helped Arkansas overcome a 38-33 halftime deficit, an 11-point deficit with 16 minutes to play and a 9-point deficit with eight minutes remaining.
• With Arkansas down 11, Joe scored 15 or Arkansas’ final 32 points as the Razorbacks closed the game on a 32-14 run, including a 19-3 run over the final eight minutes.
• First, Joe made three 3-pointers to trim Arkansas’ 11-point deficit to two.
• Later, with Arkansas down nine, Joe hit a turnaround jumper on the right elbow to tie the game, 61-61.
• Joe sealed the win by going 4-of-4 at the free throw line over the final 27 seconds.
• Joe recorded his seventh game this season with at least five rebounds.
Joe drained six 3-pointers in the game, including four in the second half, to give him 158 triples in his 46-game career to move him to ninth on the school’s all-time 3-pointers made list.
He passed Dusty Hannahs, who made 155 3-pointers in 68 career games over two seasons (2015-17). Next on the list is Eric Ferguson, who made 160 3’s in 117 career games over four seasons (2002-06).
This is the third SEC Player of the Week honor by a Razorback this season as Mason Jones was tabbed after scoring 32 in a season-opening win over Rice and scoring a career-high 41 in a win over Tulsa.
Arkansas returns to a sold-out Bud Walton Arena to open SEC play as the Razorbacks host Texas A&M on Saturday.
The game is set for 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
Hogs win at Indiana significant on different levels & could set up big January
If Arkansas earns an NCAA Tournament berth this year, they might well point back to a Sunday night in Bloomington, Indiana.
The 71-64 win over the Hoosiers wrapped up the non-conference part before the league schedule was big for multiple reasons. They’ll play TCU later in January.
The Hogs trailed by as many as 11 points in the second half to the Hoosiers (11-2) in front of a packed house at venerable Assembly Hall. Just as Indiana was about to slam the door on Arkansas, the Razorbacks used a 19-3 run the final 7:49 to pick up first-year UA Coach Eric Musselman’s biggest win this season.
“It’s a real big win,” Hogs sophomore guard Isaiah Joe, who paced the Razorbacks with 24 points, told the media following the game. “To be able to bring this win back to Fayetteville, you have to cherish moments like these.”
The win has all kinds of significance.
First, the historical. The win marks the first time Arkansas has won a road game against a Big 10 opponent since the 1949-50 season when it won 65-53 win at Illinois and 75-50 win at Indiana.
The Hogs have been 0-7 since that time. The win also avenged a 63-60 loss to the Hoosiers at Bloomington in the NIT last season, former coach Mike Anderson’s final game at the helm.
A neat stat, sure, but really just a fun fact footnote.
Here’s the meat of this win. This win proves Arkansas CAN win SEC road games and WILL earn an NCA Tournament berth.
The impressive part was not only with winning, but how they won, coming back from a significant second-half deficit.
Arkansas hit 12 of 31 three-pointers and Mason Jones was clutch, hitting 3-balls on back-to-back possessions late in the game to fuel the win.
Arkansas was picked 11th in the preseason SEC poll. What Musselman has shown over the past 12 games is he has improved every player on the roster individually, and he can outcoach and out-prepare the opponent.
That’s what I figured when I predicted Arkansas would need a win or two in the SEC Tournament to get off the NCAA Tournament bubble.
That was bold at that point. Now, there is reason to think Musselman’s crew could be in the upper echelon of the conference.
Playing in front of nearly 15,000 fans at Assembly Hall will be tougher than most SEC venues. The crowd was really getting loud midway through the second half. It looked like IU was going to blow the game open.
“In the huddles, there wasn’t any panic,” Musselman told the media. “I probably got on the guys less tonight than I have all year. At halftime I got on them less. We were calmer in all of our huddles.
“I thought they were giving great effort. I thought if we just hung around and tried to get [other] guys on their roster to take shots instead of some of the guys that were hurting us that maybe the tide could change if we knocked down a few threes.”
And that will be the recipe to winning on the road in the SEC, too. Musselman gained this team’s trust early. The chemistry and bond is strong.
That’s remarkable with a first-year coach, but it probably goes back to his lengthy past of coaching in the NBA and other stops as to how to build that rapport. Whatever the case, the coach knows this team, and it has paid off so far.
The other reason the win is important is because of what it could mean on Selection Sunday. Indiana is primed for a good run in the rugged Big 10 and will have a good chance of a tournament berth.
That will help Arkansas in the committee’s eyes.
The Hogs’ nonconference schedule hasn’t been extremely tough, but they won two of the tougher games on the schedule — at Georgia Tech and Indiana.
The win couldn’t have come at a better time as Arkansas welcomes Texas A&M to a sold-out Bud Walton Arena for the SEC opener Saturday.
The Aggies are struggling under first-year coach Buzz Williams. Among the losses are a 62-51 loss to Harvard and a 65-42 blowout to Temple, and a 67-62 setback to Fairfield — all at the Orlando Invitational last month.
A&M has won back-to-back games with Texas Southern coming into College Station on Monday night, but Arkansas will be favored.
In the past, Arkansas has had trouble getting out of the gates of the SEC slate.
The A&M game should continue the momentum of the Indiana win, and then two good road tests against LSU and Ole Miss before returning home for Vanderbilt and Kentucky, respectively.
January sets up for a good start if the Hogs can play well at LSU and Ole Miss.
Joe, Jones key late run by Hogs to 71-64 win at Indiana on Sunday night
Yes, this Arkansas team can go on the road and win a game.
With a 19-3 run over the last 7:49 of the game, the Razorbacks found a way to pull out a 71-64 win over Indiana in Bloomington, Ind., on Sunday night and finished the early non-conference part of the schedule at 11-1.
And they did all that after figuring out a way to combat the Hoosiers’ size advantage and inside dominance, plus Isaiah Joe and Mason Jones got hot from the outside.
Joe going 4-of-4 at the free-throw line in the final minute also sealed any chance of Indiana finding a way to come back late.
The Hogs trailed by 11 with 16:41 to play before clawing their way back into the game by forcing the Hoosiers to keep turning the ball over. They didn’t help their cause by going just 9-of-18 from the free-throw line.
Joe led Arkansas with 24 points, but it was back-to-back 3-pointers by Jones with less than three minutes to play that opened a 67-62 lead and they held it the rest of the way. Jones had 21 for the game.
Indiana guard Al Durham, averaging 12.2 points a game coming in, got thrown out with 7:18 to go in the first half for throwing an elbow that landed flush on Adrio Bailey’s mouth.
Instant replay showed what none of the officials saw live, a Flagrant 2 foul. Hogs coach Eric Musselman had pushed for a review because apparently nobody noticed it as it was away from the ball.
The Hoosiers could have used Durham the rest of the way.
Desi Sills scored 10 points for the Hogs before fouling out late. Arkansas was 25-of-62 from the field and 12-of-31 on 3-pointers.
Joe (6), Jones (4) and Sills (2) accounted for all of Arkansas’ made 3-pointers.
It was the second time Arkansas had beaten Indiana over the last two seasons, winning a one-point nailbiter in Fayetteville last November before losing in the NIT.
Now it’s on to the SEC schedule and it starts with Texas A&M on Saturday at 6 p.m. at a sold-out Bud Walton Arena.
And the Hogs will do it coming off a hot non-conference start to the season.
Neighbors after win over UT-Martin on new football coach needing red jacket
Before Arkansas’ game with Tennessee-Martin, new football coach Sam Pittman talked with Hogs coach Mike Neighbors about the red jacket he was sporting during the game.
Neighbors surprised at getting another blowout win in non-conference
Heading into the SEC opener against Texas A&M this week, Hogs coach Mike Neighbors was surprised after a 50-point win over a good UT-Martin on Sunday.
Tolefree, Dungee on Hogs’ 50-point win over Skyhawks on Sunday
Arkansas players Alexis Tolefree (23 points, 3 assists) and Chelsea Dungee (16 points, 5 rebounds) after 96-46 win over Tennessee-Martin and difference this year.
