Quote from: JenksHawg on Yesterday at 08:25:55 amWe were not a Top 5 team.  We finished 10th.  We had an incredibly easy road that year to the Elite 8 - favored to win all 3 games to get there and almost lost to ORU.  The next year was also solid.  The last 2 years were failures. 

I'd much rather be relevant all season long, finish Top 5 in the SEC, Top 20 overall, and lose in the 2nd round that be disappointing all year and get lucky with an easy path to an Elite 8. 

Luck is a way of describing someone else's success.

We all know the rules. Survive and Advance. Win the game that is in front of you.

Arkansas made it to the Final 4 in 1990 without ever having to play a team above a #4 seed. Was that luck? Should we strike that Final 4 from the record books?

Quote from: donnie on Yesterday at 07:31:03 amSure people see things differently. People also invent things in their heads.

Did the officials cause Colgate to lose the TO battle by 12?

Did the officials cause Colgate to go 11/31 on 2 point FGA?

Even if you evened up the FTs (which is stupid; some teams foul more and especially so when they are overmatched athletically) we still win by 7.

Weird how we averaged allowing 17 FTA over the whole season and Colgate shot 17 FTs.

The only reason Colgate started with a prayer is Vanover. Once Muss went small and fast it overwhelmed them.

Exactly.
This is actually a game that really made me admire Muss's coaching even more. He wasn't really known for going 'up-tempo', but that's what this game called for, and that's what he did. He unleashed his athletes and gradually overwhelmed slower Colgate, and we won going away. We really turned up the pressure full court on Colgate to get them running up and down the court.

Contrast to Stan Heath against Bucknell in 2006, who should have done the same thing,but the only he knew how to play was slow down Big Ten ball, so naturally we take the upset loss.

Good coaches adapt.

Quote from: SWD26 on Yesterday at 07:05:08 amI thought Colgate got some rough officiating in that game; the second half was called much differently, and definitely in Arkansas favor. I also thought that was one of the games where Coach Musselman was very much outcoached.
I believe there would be a whole lot more upsets in the tournament overall if the "big name" teams weren't somewhat protected.

So the refs didn't protect Kentucky and Auburn enough last month, thus Oakland and Yale.

Quote from: Hog_Fink on Yesterday at 07:59:58 amLiam still not committed to UConn
Hopefully we end up w that visit
Get him on campus and make magic happen

Make it rain?

"Let's go have some chicken and talk business."

Quote from: HogBreath on Yesterday at 06:32:47 amWhat ever Cal runs...it will almost certainly be a quantum leap ahead of that dreadful mussbuss jazz.

It's a delicate balance.

KY's offense was explosive last year. But Cal hasn't done diddly poo in the NCAAs in recent years.

Muss emphasizes defense, and he has five Sweet 16s at Nevada and Arkansas.

No reason you can't have both, but you need both. KY didn't defend Oakland very well and let a guy drain 10 threes on them. Very poor effort, and they took an embarrassing loss.

Talk about being better on offense all you want, but you still have to defend. Be careful what we wish for here.

Quote from: Boarmonger on Yesterday at 07:21:30 pmBoth posted on IG that they were on campus.

Well, hopefully they weren't pointing their phone at Fayetteville HS like the other guy...

Quote from: hawgtime on Yesterday at 01:22:01 pmWhat are Calipari's main stops when he has a new visiting Recruit come into arkansas?

What feed back are we hearing so far???

Go HOGS

Catfish Hole, of course.

Joking. Catfish Hole doesn't seem to be a Cal type of place.

Catfish Hole is a Sam Pittman type of place. Me, too. Been there many times.

JQ will go elsewhere this next season, but watch he'll hit the portal and come back to Arkansas for his 2nd year. 

Which most also forget, the worst luck we ever had with Hogs was after Nolan beat Coach K and Duke. Mike went to the NCAA and complained about how Nolan played defense. Nolan used to say, he wanted the other team to feel like they had just been in a street fight. Which, when you went against Corey Beck, you probably did.  Mike wanted the NCAA to bar the 2hand check. That changed everything for Nolans defense. The following year they made 2 hand check a foul. If you had 1hand on a player, As soon as you would go to put other hand on player back, foul called.  Not only that, then they started adding all these timeouts. TV to's then 30 second TOs. Nolans entire scheme was to run the other guys down with defense. Then score when they made a mistake with the ball. Or trap the player. Heck, now you can't even do that. It was like a concerted effort to nullify Nolans style of play.  Which it worked because practically none of what Nolan taught is now legal.

That's one reason why I kind of wanted Chris Beard to be the next coach. His defense is what Nolan/Mike's defense should have evolved into. But, I digress. I do hope Cal has a fire in his belly to show UK fans that he didn't need them to make his name better and that leads him to winning a title or two or three.. lol here at Arkansas. 

Quote from: Hollywood_HOGan45 on Yesterday at 07:44:28 pmAfter riding an all time high of coming within one step of two straight national titles, we grabbed the undisputed number one class that year in which we thought there was no slowing us down even after losing the group that gave us the pinnacle of Razorback basketball.

Reid technically was in the class before when he should have been Beck's backup. Maybe we win it if we had him but of course some NCAA technicality.
I know all about Hood, Adebayo, Pate (RIP), Bradley, Antwon Hall, Marlon Towns, Ali Thompson etc etc. If we could have avoided all the drama with NCAA, that group had a very high ceiling. They could all go go go go go go go.

But someone that knows more than me remind me what happened to the rest of the class.
Two HUGE pieces Kevin Robinson and Marcus Saxon never played one game for us. Why?
Didn't we also have Gerald Honeycut?

All these amazing recruiting success is taking me back to the big time what if class.

IIRC, that class after Corliss/Scott was called the greatest recruiting class "on paper" possibly ever.  That to me seemed awful boastful,   because the Fab Five was pretty good.  But in any case, it was almost even better. Most have forgot, but we almost had Ron Mercer also. Nolan got upset that Ron was taking his time it was between UK and Hogs. Nolan decided to sign Hood and Mercer went to UK. While I did like Hood, Mercer with Pate, that'd been a good team. Of course that team was decimated with non qualifiers. Half team didn't make it. Then Sunday & Pate removed from team. Heck, Nolan didn't even break out the Press until post season and we make the Sweet16.

Which, we can go on and on about who we could have got. Honestly,  I believe Nolan was burned out. I wish that Nolan could have pulled a Mike Kresewsawooski from Duke and claimed his back was hurt whenever he had a bad team and those losses didn't count against his overall record.  I wish Nolan could ha e got a reset, Mike took over as interim, then Nolan came back after a year of rest. That final season , Nolan got reinvigorated on recruiting trail. Although the record didn't show it that last season. He had some great players on the team. JJ Sullinger was a true frosh, and son of one of Nolans friends. He was a great player. The class Nolan had coming was a really good class. Which also included Andre Iguodala. Mix him w/Sullinger, and all those kids that went to UAB after Nolan was fired and there's another Final Four team.  Had Nolan not been fired , we do undoubtedly get Conley Jr and Odom also. Which they made a final four for Ohio st. So there's another. Plus, look at all those kids that were former Hog players family, kids etc.   Mike used them at Mizz to make an elite8. Nolan with those kids and possibly Oden/Conley perhaps win the title.  I believe those players all aligned.  So, who knows what would have happened.

If we want to play that game tho, what if we were able to hire Bill Self? Or, what if Stan Heath was able to pull AL Jefferson to college in his #1 class? What if Olu Famutimi had never got injured and came in as the guy who scored 37pts on LeBron James in elite HS game?  That team might have won a title. May have won2. We've definitely had chances to have been a lot more successful than we have.  Just some bad luck. 


With that said, I believe Cal is going to get most everyone he truly wants going forward.  Especially with more time to recruit to Arkansas than he's had the last couple weeks. If he fills the team with 5* players does that mean he'll win tho? No. He hasn't done it at UK is what the UK fans want to tell us.  But, post season is a crapshoot. They call it madness for a reason. You don't necessarily have to have the most talent of anyone on a team to win. Look at UConn. They didn't have the most athletic team. They had a mix of guys who had experience.  Now they did have some great shooters tho. And they rebounded like crazy. Their inside guy made nearly everything also. With the way this current team is being built with Cal, he'll have no choice but to mix some HS highly regarded talent with guys who've already got college experience.  I believe that's the key.  I mean, if Muss could have got that final piece he always seemed to miss out on, the BIG inside scoring threat, who knows, if he had got Blackshear(UF) or Obanor(ttech) or Dickinson (ku) or Nelson (bama) the Hogs may have made a final four all of those years and Muss might even even gotten us a title or two.  But, I believe he almost had the formula down.  If Cal can change his style up just a little to mix top portal experience with top high school 5* talent. Cal may win us a title or two. Or more. Wishful thinking I guess.  But we'll  see.