Some Civilized thoughts after Tonight's Game

[-Blu]

Wanted to get a thread going where we can actually discuss the game and team that doesn't consist of Mike Anderson can't coach blah blah, we suck blah blah, our offense sucks blah blah, The seat is hot blah blah, I can't take this any more blah blah.

With that said, I think Mizzou just wanted it more than us tonight, Their game plan was to make us live and die by the 3, and it worked out well, we were hot first half, second half we cooled down.  And they have a better team than us,  you can choose any 1 of any 3 of their guards Clarkson, Brown, Ross and they'd be the best player on our team.

I'm a person that's usually very optimistic, but I'm going to be honest here, and I'm not getting my opinion from just tonight, but from what I've seen since conference play has started.  And I hope this isn't player bashing or coach bashing, because that's not my intentions just want to get an honest conversation going here. But, we don't have 11 or 12 guys that are good enough to play.  We got 1 pretty good player, 3-4 guys that are decent, and the rest are mediocre at best, and you just hope they can have good games here and there.  And it's really frustrating because these guys should be better than this.  The coaching staff is going to have to make a real decision, a lot of posters have said we need a 8-9 man rotation, and they are right, probably even needs to be smaller than that, because we just dig ourselves into holes every time our bench comes into games, then the the starters have to come in and go on a huge run just to bail us out to take a 1 or 2 point lead.

At this point, I'm only really seeing one guy that I don't shake my head when he's subbed in off the bench and that's Kingsley.  Qualls gave us some good shooting tonight, but he's been the model of inconsistency and really gives up a lot of open 3's on defense trying to cheat, this is a guy that should be one of our best defenders.  But he seems to break down on defense at the biggest times of each game, and it's frustrating.  He does need to be back in the starting lineup, because we're almost getting nothing from Bell, but Qualls has got to step his game up on defense and get consistent on offense.

And someone said this in the game thread, can Kikko please play defense and stop flopping all the time, 90% of his defense is grabbing and flopping, sometimes the flopping works, but most of the time all he's doing is getting called for fouls or letting his man get a wide open lane.

Harris, I don't know what to say, his confidence is just gone.  Williams is out of control at times and inconsistent, Wade doesn't give us much.  These guys have got to go look in the mirror, and say this enough and go out there and play.

[HawgAdvocate]

[Breems]

It's not even worth discussing the games or stats anymore. The Razorbacks effectively ended their season tonight.

[onebadrubi]

I'd plow... Ohhh this isnt DST...  Worthless then

[cardsNhogs]

It's not even worth discussing the games or stats anymore. The Razorbacks effectively ended their season tonight.

No kidding

[-Blu]

I see HA has made it home from the game, and made sure to make his presence felt in every thread.

[chiti66]

Agree with everything you said, but I would like to add that CMA has got to tweak the system.  We are running any type of offense, and our D is terrible.  No way Portis or Kingley should be guarding players beyond the FT line.  I would rather see more zone, extended zone and aggressive play on the boards. Weight room could really help our guys.  Ky is our best player and he would be a Beast if he spent time in the weight room.

Go Hogs!

[-Blu]

It's not even worth discussing the games or stats anymore. The Razorbacks effectively ended their season tonight.

You know it's over when Breems loses all hope.  I must admit, tonight took something out of me as well, I went and just laid down for a while, felt like I lost my best friend or something.

And on another note I hope the staff calls Atwood tonight and offer him a scholarship. If Harris doesn't want to dunk on somebody at home in a close game when he has a 2 on 1 break when the other guy is Kikko, he needs somebody to come in and threatening and/or take his spot.

[HawgAdvocate]

I see HA has made it home from the game, and made sure to make his presence felt in every thread.

LOL yeah, "every thread"...but if by "every thread" you mean just three (including this joke), then you'd be right.

[-Blu]

Agree with everything you said, but I would like to add that CMA has got to tweak the system.  We are running any type of offense, and our D is terrible.  No way Portis or Kingley should be guarding players beyond the FT line.  I would rather see more zone, extended zone and aggressive play on the boards. Weight room could really help our guys.  Ky is our best player and he would be a Beast if he spent time in the weight room.

Go Hogs!

Yea coaching staff is not off the hook tonight.  CMA has got to stop being so nice and cut this rotation, we don't have enough players to play the way he wants to, plain and simple.  I have no problem with the switches, because it worked well in the first half keeping Ross and Brown off the 3 point line.  When they started getting open shots is when guys started trying to cheat and when we did go into a zone.  The switching wasn't the cost of us losing the game tonight.

[-Blu]

LOL yeah, "every thread"...but if by "every thread" you mean just three (including this joke), then you'd be right.

Well thanks for gracing this thread, I know your a busy man.  I know this is like a celebration for you right now.  Your probably popping champagne and smoking a cigar and got Pelphrey on Skype with you right now.

[forrest city joe]

You seem happy tonight. where were you after the win the other night?congrats to you on another Hog loss.

[Hoggish1]

Missouri is simply a better team.  They shot 44% from the field and 22 of 27 from the line.
We were 37% and 13 of 19.  Even if we had shot 100% from the line, they would have beat us by three on FTs alone.

Rebounding...?  Let's leave that conversation for another day...

[-Blu]

You seem happy tonight. where were you after the win the other night?congrats to you on another Hog loss.

LOL, you know how he is Joe.  While most of us fans are sad right now, he's running around here just as happy as he can be.  Let him have his fun tonight.  Fact remains CMA still will be here next year, and the year after that.

[Hoggish1]

Agree with everything you said, but I would like to add that CMA has got to tweak the system.  We are running any type of offense, and our D is terrible.  No way Portis or Kingley should be guarding players beyond the FT line.  I would rather see more zone, extended zone and aggressive play on the boards. Weight room could really help our guys.  Ky is our best player and he would be a Beast if he spent time in the weight room.

Go Hogs!

Speaking of the weight room, there were some very well built Missouri players on the court with our string beans.

[HawgAdvocate]

You seem happy tonight. where were you after the win the other night?congrats to you on another Hog loss.

Hate on man, hate on. I haven't directed anything at MA within this thread.

I like MA. I want him to do better. I enjoy watching you realize and acknowledge everything isn't hunky dory.

[rzrbackramsfan]

We need bell to be sniper and play a lot of minutes.  Anderson said it in his post game, this team took a step back.  I look forward to this team improving every game and doing some things we thought they couldn't.

[Kevin]

How about asking him, if he ever thinks about playing the high pick & roll differently? 

Why is there no offensive movement at the end of the game?

Do all the players have  the green light to shoot? 

[forrest city joe]

LOL, you know how he is Joe.  While most of us fans are sad right now, he's running around here just as happy as he can be.  Let him have his fun tonight.  Fact remains CMA still will be here next year, and the year after that.

Right on the money. +1000

[MissionHillsTgr]

best coach ever

[forrest city joe]

Hate on man, hate on. I haven't directed anything at MA within this thread.

I like MA. I want him to do better. I enjoy watching you realize and acknowledge everything isn't hunky dory.

Face it man. people know where you are coming from. you want Mike to fail, so you can say i told you so to people like me. you still can't get over the fact that your boy Pel was fired. he is not coming back. move on.

[Hogimus Prime]

This system needs to be redone or replaced. It isn't working.  The roster needs an overhaul and so does the coaching staff

[-Blu]

This system needs to be redone or replaced. It isn't working.  The roster needs an overhaul and so does the coaching staff

That's an awesome plan, with no flaws, that's sure to bring success.  +1  Keep those ideas coming!

[HawgAdvocate]

Face it man. people know where you are coming from. you want Mike to fail, so you can say i told you so to people like me. you still can't get over the fact that your boy Pel was fired. he is not coming back. move on.

I like MA. I want him to do better. I enjoy watching you realize and acknowledge everything isn't hunky dory.

[Hogimus Prime]

That's an awesome plan, with no flaws, that's sure to bring success.  +1  Keep those ideas coming!

Its not a plan. Its what needs to be done. Half the roster is dead weight an needs to move on.

[Biggus Piggus]

MA is failing.  No need to wait. Enjoy now. And nobody posted after Auburn because it was Auburn, not an accomplishment.

[Smithian]

It's not even worth discussing the games or stats anymore. The Razorbacks effectively ended their season tonight.

Oh so negative

[lasthog]

Wanted to get a thread going where we can actually discuss the game and team that doesn't consist of Mike Anderson can't coach blah blah, we suck blah blah, our offense sucks blah blah, The seat is hot blah blah, I can't take this any more blah blah.

With that said, I think Mizzou just wanted it more than us tonight, Their game plan was to make us live and die by the 3, and it worked out well, we were hot first half, second half we cooled down.  And they have a better team than us,  you can choose any 1 of any 3 of their guards Clarkson, Brown, Ross and they'd be the best player on our team.

I'm a person that's usually very optimistic, but I'm going to be honest here, and I'm not getting my opinion from just tonight, but from what I've seen since conference play has started.  And I hope this isn't player bashing or coach bashing, because that's not my intentions just want to get an honest conversation going here. But, we don't have 11 or 12 guys that are good enough to play.  We got 1 pretty good player, 3-4 guys that are decent, and the rest are mediocre at best, and you just hope they can have good games here and there.  And it's really frustrating because these guys should be better than this.  The coaching staff is going to have to make a real decision, a lot of posters have said we need a 8-9 man rotation, and they are right, probably even needs to be smaller than that, because we just dig ourselves into holes every time our bench comes into games, then the the starters have to come in and go on a huge run just to bail us out to take a 1 or 2 point lead.

At this point, I'm only really seeing one guy that I don't shake my head when he's subbed in off the bench and that's Kingsley.  Qualls gave us some good shooting tonight, but he's been the model of inconsistency and really gives up a lot of open 3's on defense trying to cheat, this is a guy that should be one of our best defenders.  But he seems to break down on defense at the biggest times of each game, and it's frustrating.  He does need to be back in the starting lineup, because we're almost getting nothing from Bell, but Qualls has got to step his game up on defense and get consistent on offense.

And someone said this in the game thread, can Kikko please play defense and stop flopping all the time, 90% of his defense is grabbing and flopping, sometimes the flopping works, but most of the time all he's doing is getting called for fouls or letting his man get a wide open lane.

Harris, I don't know what to say, his confidence is just gone.  Williams is out of control at times and inconsistent, Wade doesn't give us much.  These guys have got to go look in the mirror, and say this enough and go out there and play.

Excellent post.  One of your points does bring up a question/observation though.

I believe MA is in a "darned if you do--darned if you don't" situation when it comes to player rotation.  If he cuts the rotation as you suggest he might, can we play full court pressure defense for much of the game?  If not, does that not compel us to get into a half court game the majority of the time?  I fear we would not be competitive with most of our opponents in a "your turn, my turn" type of game, to borrow the expression from the great Nolan.



Man it hurts to see us get pounded inside, sometimes by superior physical prowess, sometimes by superior technique, and sometimes, lamentably, by superior determination.

I love MA, and believe he will get it done, but this is tough right now--for those of us who truly want the program to succeed.

[hawgmasta]

I mentioned the other day that I wish these guys had heart like Patrick Beverly. Play like a home game is your gym you've been playing in since you were 10.

Not trying to player bash either but these guys aren't as good of BASKETBALL players as most teams. If you had a pro day at Arkansas for basketball I'm sure some of our guys would wow people with their length, speed and verticals. That doesn't help box out for rebounds, run a few pick & rolls, take smart shots instead of 3s and fast breaks all the time.

I do understand that mikes system is supposed to have athletes that run people down and wear them out with excellent defense. The problem is they're not playing great D all the time, and if were honest if we didn't use a fast break system I'm sure our offensive numbers would be absolutely horrendous.

It's frustrating and I wish I knew the answer. The thing about basketball is there are less guys on the floor than football (duh). When you have a truly elite (NBA) talent on your team it shows, and I do know that would help us (duh, again). It would seem that Anderson has to know he needs to recruit well above average to win. Being an Arkansas fan over the years has taught me one thing; truly elite playmakers make the college game, it's more about the players at this level sometimes. Bobby Portis and Kingsley have that potential, Madden may. Qualls has the athleticism and length and J. Williams has the energy for it.


Sorry for not making an overall concise point, but these are just a few of my thoughts on today games. Ramble/smite away. . .

[hhicNaychaBoi]

Progress is a process and this years team may have peaked to early. We have enough talent to be competitive but not to be a great team right now. Having powell and young would have been huge. They are gone so we have what we have and cma is trying to make the best of it but the talent level isnt there yet. Hopefully beard can come in next year and be good as advertised. We only have 1 guard thats very good and our best big men arevyoung and need time in the weight room to mature their bodies.  The team has made strides but we need to continue to upgrade our talent. I believe flowers and beard will help a lot.

[-Blu]

Excellent post.  One of your points does bring up a question/observation though.

I believe MA is in a "darned if you do--darned if you don't" situation when it comes to player rotation.  If he cuts the rotation as you suggest he might, can we play full court pressure defense for much of the game?  If not, does that not compel us to get into a half court game the majority of the time?  I fear we would not be competitive with most of our opponents in a "your turn, my turn" type of game, to borrow the expression from the great Nolan.

Your right, that full court press we play most of the game would probably be eliminated if we cut our rotation. I'm not coach, I was just giving my opinion and observation on what I've seen.  It's probably unrealistic to think CMA is going to change his whole system and cut the rotation, matter of fact that's not going to happen,  But, anyone can see we don't have enough talent on this team to play the way he wants to.  The difference between our starters and bench is huge.  We don't have a single guard that comes off the bench for us that can penetrate and get to the lane.  Madden is really the only person on this team that can create his own shot and get into the lane, Gulley shows signs of it from time to time, but he's not really a threat to do it, because he doesn't do it often.  And if you want to win on the road or win against good teams, you gotta have guys that can get to the basket, draw fouls, and get to the FT line.

[Albert Einswine]

Reading through this thread, I've determined that the contraction "you're" isn't highly esteemed, and possibly downright frowned upon...

[HawgAdvocate]

+2700

[Randy Johnson]

I guess I could agree with all the negative posts if the seven games we lost were all blow outs. If no one was getting any better then I would be concerned. I don't see all this doom and gloom. IMO the measure of success is not just post season when you are rebuilding. I see slow steady progress.

[Randy Johnson]

Reading through this thread, I've determined that the contraction "you're" isn't highly esteemed, and possibly downright frowned upon...

your now 2701

[moses_007]

Missouri is simply a better team.  They shot 44% from the field and 22 of 27 from the line.
We were 37% and 13 of 19.  Even if we had shot 100% from the line, they would have beat us by three on FTs alone.

Let's see.  We lost by 4 points.  We missed 6 free throws.  My math is we would have won had we hit our free throws.  In fact, that's this team's major problem.  We lost the Florida, Georgia, and Missouri games because of missed free throws.  There may have been another one too.

[Randy Johnson]

Let's see.  We lost by 4 points.  We missed 6 free throws.  My math is we would have won had we hit our free throws.  In fact, that's this team's major problem.  We lost the Florida, Georgia, and Missouri games because of missed free throws.  There may have been another one too.

This and rebounding.

[hhicNaychaBoi]

I guess I could agree with all the negative posts if the seven games we lost were all blow outs. If no one was getting any better then I would be concerned. I don't see all this doom and gloom. IMO the measure of success is not just post season when you are rebuilding. I see slow steady progress.

this is exactly what ive been saying but it seemscto have fallen on deaf ears.

[Randy Johnson]

this is exactly what ive been saying but it seemscto have fallen on deaf ears.

Nice to know I'm not alone.

[porkinsons disease]

We"re so close!!

[cityhog]

Fact remains CMA still will be here next year, and the year after that.

That fact alone is party worthy right?

[Wild Bill Hog]

Well thanks for gracing this thread, I know your a busy man.  I know this is like a celebration for you right now.  Your probably popping champagne and smoking a cigar and got Pelphrey on Skype with you right now.

Is this one of your "Civilized thoughts"?  Good job.   

[arkjay19]

Missouri is simply a better team.  They shot 44% from the field and 22 of 27 from the line.
We were 37% and 13 of 19.  Even if we had shot 100% from the line, they would have beat us by three on FTs alone.

Rebounding...?  Let's leave that conversation for another day...

As I have had explained to me on this board many times, rebounds are meaningless.  Don't you know that?  We get turnovers so the stat of rebounds does not apply to Arkansas.

Cede the rebounding battle and focus on turnovers.  That's a winning strategy, right?

[Wild Bill Hog]

Let's see.  We lost by 4 points.  We missed 6 free throws.  My math is we would have won had we hit our free throws.

Do you really want to go here?  If so, then how about if we made all 6 of those free throws, but MO made 1 of the 3 pointers they missed we would have lost by 1?

[HawgTrough]

It's not even worth discussing the games or stats anymore. The Razorbacks effectively ended their season tonight.

Yep, it's over. It'll be a struggle for Anderson to avoid total derailment at this point.

[-Blu]

Is this one of your "Civilized thoughts"?  Good job.   

Thanks.  I didn't see anything wrong with it.

[mhuff]

Wanted to get a thread going where we can actually discuss the game and team that doesn't consist of Mike Anderson can't coach blah blah, we suck blah blah, our offense sucks blah blah, The seat is hot blah blah, I can't take this any more blah blah.

With that said, I think Mizzou just wanted it more than us tonight, Their game plan was to make us live and die by the 3, and it worked out well, we were hot first half, second half we cooled down.  And they have a better team than us,  you can choose any 1 of any 3 of their guards Clarkson, Brown, Ross and they'd be the best player on our team.

I'm a person that's usually very optimistic, but I'm going to be honest here, and I'm not getting my opinion from just tonight, but from what I've seen since conference play has started.  And I hope this isn't player bashing or coach bashing, because that's not my intentions just want to get an honest conversation going here. But, we don't have 11 or 12 guys that are good enough to play.  We got 1 pretty good player, 3-4 guys that are decent, and the rest are mediocre at best, and you just hope they can have good games here and there.  And it's really frustrating because these guys should be better than this.  The coaching staff is going to have to make a real decision, a lot of posters have said we need a 8-9 man rotation, and they are right, probably even needs to be smaller than that, because we just dig ourselves into holes every time our bench comes into games, then the the starters have to come in and go on a huge run just to bail us out to take a 1 or 2 point lead.

At this point, I'm only really seeing one guy that I don't shake my head when he's subbed in off the bench and that's Kingsley.  Qualls gave us some good shooting tonight, but he's been the model of inconsistency and really gives up a lot of open 3's on defense trying to cheat, this is a guy that should be one of our best defenders.  But he seems to break down on defense at the biggest times of each game, and it's frustrating.  He does need to be back in the starting lineup, because we're almost getting nothing from Bell, but Qualls has got to step his game up on defense and get consistent on offense.

And someone said this in the game thread, can Kikko please play defense and stop flopping all the time, 90% of his defense is grabbing and flopping, sometimes the flopping works, but most of the time all he's doing is getting called for fouls or letting his man get a wide open lane.

Harris, I don't know what to say, his confidence is just gone.  Williams is out of control at times and inconsistent, Wade doesn't give us much.  These guys have got to go look in the mirror, and say this enough and go out there and play.

Blu, agree with everything said. Good analysis and telling it like it is. HA was giving you credit or whoever that tells what is really going down. I do not see anything wrong with telling the truth about how you feel. We all want to see MA and the Razorbacks do well. This is a talk board ,and I hope I always give credit where it is due. I think it is all right as well to discuss where we need to improve. Now if a person comes on the board that is a troll or purposely tries to keep the board in disarray. That person should be shown the door. That is not needed on this board.

[WMHawgfan]

You know it's over when Breems loses all hope.  I must admit, tonight took something out of me as well, I went and just laid down for a while, felt like I lost my best friend or something.

And on another note I hope the staff calls Atwood tonight and offer him a scholarship. If Harris doesn't want to dunk on somebody at home in a close game when he has a 2 on 1 break when the other guy is Kikko, he needs somebody to come in and threatening and/or take his spot.

I work with Willie's uncle. He just told me he would contact him and see if they are showing interest or if they have made an offer.

[ICEman]

A good game here and there will get you somewhere around 18 and 12 on the season with a trip home for SpringBreak.

[Rbill]

Everything I have seen points to trimming the rotation. There's a very noticeable correlation between our success with the starters or the majority of them on the court vs having 4 or usually all 5 of our players being bench players at the same time. I mean it's so obvious it's laughable. We are effective with certain people on the floor. This can be FIXED.

1) Identify the players you need on the court the most. I'll help: Madden, Gulley, Portis, Clarke, Kingsley. Coach should never look up and see any of those guys sitting on the bench unless they are sucking air. Then add the players that are going to fill out your main rotation: Qualls, Williams, Kikko, and maybe Bell.

2) Do everything in your power to have these people on the floor as much as possible. Manage their rest!! And you can rotate players without sending in 5 bench players at the same time. If you absolutely have to, you can send in someone like Wade or Harris shortly before a TV timeout. And guess what? After that timeout he's out again.