Tye and Tommy recap the weekend in Sports and sniff out a new issue for Tye to keep his nose in the air for.
Guests: Clay Henry.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: 12-16-24
Razorbacks have no problems rolling past UCA in North Little Rock
NORTH LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas had six players score in double figures as the Razorbacks cruised to an 82-57 victory over Central Arkansas Saturday afternoon in the Hogs’ annual trip to Simmons Bank Arena.
Freshman Boogie Fland led the way with 16 points, a career-high nine assists (with just one turnover) and a career-high five steals. Fellow freshman Karter Knox came off the bench to score 14 points. D.J. Wagner, who had six assists, and Jonas Aidoo, who was 6-of-6 from the floor, each scored 13 points. Trevon Brazile, who had five blocked shots, and Johnell Davis each scored 11 points.
Arkansas played without leading scorer Adou Thiero, who sat out due to illness.
Arkansas raced out to a 22-7 lead to start the game and never looked back. UCA did get to with 10 after that but the Razorbacks answered with a 9-0 run and led comfortably the rest of the game.
Elias Cato led UCA with 15 points with Lane Taylor and Ben Fox adding 13 and 12 points, respectively.
The Razorbacks shot 60% from the field, handing out 23 assists on 33 made baskets. On the other end, Arkansas held UCA to 33.3% shooting as the Bears only had eight assists. Also, Arkansas only had five steals, compared to six thefts by UCA, but the Hogs had 21 fastbreak points compared to zero for the Bears.
Arkansas returns to Bud Walton Arena to host North Carolina A&T next Saturday (Dec. 21). Tipoff is set for 1:30 pm and the game will be televised on the SEC Network.
FIRST HALF: Arkansas 46 – UCA 28
• Arkansas scored first and pushed its lead to 22-7 after back-to-back steals and layups to force a UCA timeout at 14:43. Fland scored seven points while Trevon Brazile and Jonas Aidoo each scored six. Overall, Arkansas made 9 of its first 11 shot attempts.
• UCA trimmed its deficit to 10 (27-17) before Arkansas went on a 9-0 run to take a 19-point lead (36-17). Karter Knox led the surge with an old fashion 3-point play and a 3-pointer from the right corner.
• The Hogs took its largest lead of the half of 21 points (44-23) with 2:06 left on a jumper from the left corner from Fland.
• Fland led Arkansas with 13 points and Jonas Aidoo had 10.
• Arkansas shot and impressive 67.9% from the field and had 12 assists on its 19 made baskets. D.J. Wagner led the way with five helpers.
• Arkansas held UCA to 33.3% shooting overall and just 3-of-15 (20%) from 3-point. The Bears did go 7-of-8 from the free throw line compared to 3-of-3 by Arkansas.
• Elias Cato led UCA with 11 points.
• The 46 points is the second points Arkansas has scored in the North Little Arena. The record is 51 vs Alabama A&M on Dec. 12, 2012. (HogStats)
SECOND HALF: Arkansas 36 – UCA 29
• Fland has six of his nine assists in the second half and Brazile had four of his five blocked shots in the period.
• Wagner led Arkansas with 10 second-half points.
• Arkansas had 11 assists on its 14 made baskets.
• UCA only made nine second-half baskets.
GAME NOTES:
• For the first time, Arkansas’ starting lineup was Boogie Fland, D.J. Wagner, Johnell Davis, Trevon Brazile and Jonas Aidoo.
• Arkansas won the opening tip. The Razorbacks have won the tip in 10 of 11 games.
• Trevon Brazile scored the game’s first points with two free throws at 19:38.
• Karter Knox and Zvonimir Ivisic were Arkansas’ first subs.
• Arkansas improves to 9-0 all-time versus UCA, but this marked just the third meeting between the programs since the 1946-47 season. The most recent meetings have been Dec. 12, 2020, Dec. 1, 2021 and today.
• Arkansas improves to 19-10 all-time in North Little Rock and improves to 15-10 in Simmons Bank Arena.
• Razorback head coach John Calipari improves to 3-0 in Simmons Bank Arena. He won two games in the NCAA Tournament in 2008 as head coach at Memphis.
• Arkansas shot 60% for the game. The previous best for the Razorbacks in this building was 53.1% versus Troy on Dec. 16, 2017. (HogStats)
• Fland finished with 16 points, nine assists, five steals and five rebounds. The last time a Hog had at least 13 points, seven assists, five steals and five rebounds was Kareem Reid (25, 9, 5, 5) versus Louisville on Dec. 9, 1997. (HogStats)
• For the third time this year, Arkansas shot and attempted single-digit free throws (7-of-9).
Information from Arkansas Communications is included in this story
Only two ways to look at former Hogs’ commitment to SEC rival
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When the news of former Arkansas offensive lineman Patrick Kutas committing to Ole Miss on Friday, there are really only two possible answers. That is strictly based off what we’ve heard from Sam Pittman.
Either the Razorbacks didn’t think he was as good as Lane Kiffin thought or he straight up lied to Sam Pittman. There’s not really any other way to look at it after Pittman’s press conference Thursday that resembled a verbal cul-de-sac at times.
That’s when he laid out the “money ball” approach the Hogs are apparently going. Pittman didn’t call it that, but it’s strangely similar. In nearly 45 minutes of talking, the whole approach to NIL now is either that or their amount of money isn’t keeping up with the teams they are recruiting against. The thing about trying to get value in finding guys in lower divisions or haven’t played much are going to be those “difference-makers” Pittman is wanting to try and attract.
“If we weren’t able to match what the number was out there nationally for somebody, then we were saying ‘hey, we believe that we can go get somebody as good or somebody [and] two somebody’s for that amount of money,” he said. “We wouldn’t have had financially the money left to go out and get what we might consider big-time difference makers had we just said ‘yes, yes, yes, yes.’ If we’d said that to every one of them, as much money as we have, we would have ran out.”
Just read between the lines of that statement carefully. That’s playing money ball with the football roster. A bigger problem will be if that’s out of necessity and not a choice. Coming up with a solution to the whole problem is something others can try and solve.
“There’s been some guys that surprised me coming in saying they’re going to transfer,” Pittman said. “Most of the time it’s about finances and we have to make a decision on what we’re willing to do coming off a 6-6 team.”
You can look at all these lists ranking different “collectives,” but there’s a huge issue with that. It’s taking into account the NIL deals not being reported or at private schools like SMU, Duke or even USC (didn’t realize that was a private school, did you?). Some of those we don’t even know what the contract is for their coaches, much less what some wealthy boosters are willing to pay for however big they want to win games.
“Financially, it’s hard to get to better than .500 if you continue to pay a whole large pool of monies,” Pittman said. “What we’re thinking to kind of cut that down and go out and get what we would consider huge difference makers. Now we’re going to have to get roster count, we’re going to have to do that as well.”
What he didn’t say is that evaluation is going to be one of the two biggest factors going forward. They are going to have to look at video, adapt it to what they have on their roster before even trying to get them to town. The second factor is harder to know you’ve got.
That’s luck. It’s really as pure and simple as that.
Ruscin & Zach December 13
Let’s just say we are all in a food coma from our company Christmas luncheon today and there is not a ton of sports content in this one. We do hear live from Peter in Australia though about how he plans on pranking people at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis.
Jox’s Pat Smith on if Alabama still have Nick Saban would have mattered
With Crimson Tide getting left out of the College Football Playoff, would legendary coach have swayed committee at all?
Democrat-Gazette’s Tom Murphy on losing good friend in Bob Holt
Also on questions facing Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman with juggling roster and managing NIL questions before bowl game, offseason.
Ruscin is over insincere good bye messages from players leaving
We react to the latest news from the press conference, talk about Belichick and North Carolina. Then DQ has a rant and Ruscin does too and some other stuff.
