Most important Hog b-ball week of the season?

[batmanfan]

I think so.

The Auburn win was one they should have won and did.  It was nothing special.  Going 1-1 this week wasn't good, and maybe not even mediocre.  Anytime you get happy about beating the worse team in the SEC you know your not much.

Anyways back to business.  Ole Miss should be a nice 15-20 point win but then we go to Rupp for our yearly rivalry game and oddly enough the biggest game of the year.  We have better talent, and should win...will they?

I say they once again lose one they are SHOULD to and go 1-1.  Until they prove to me they can I won't be picking them.  Another mediocre week for Defeat and his players.  I hope I'm wrong.

BAT

[Ugly Uncle]

I say unless we go a huge win streak...every week is an important week.  Now, the most important week is next week.  We will go one and one for this week...people are kind of expecting that.  But next week will be huge.

[Biggus Piggus]

Bat, if we beat Ole Miss by 15-20 I'll be very pleased and surprised.  Pleased because that's what the outcome SHOULD be.  Surprised given our history against them.  The Rebels did win at Alabama, regardless of the circumstances (Bama's best player going down with a knee injury).

Barnes has been fiddling with his starting lineup a lot this year.  Their best games seem to be when they start four guards.  Bet they don't have the guts to try that against us.  That means getting some stiff like Parnell or Smith in the starting lineup.  Maybe returning to Arkansas will turn them into demons against us.

Ole Miss has been running a good offense this year, producing a lot of easy baskets, the kind of stuff we have trouble stopping.  Maybe Hill can snuff out some of that.  Unlike typical Barnes, this year the Rebels are not fouling like crazy and not rebounding very well either.

Interesting thing about this game is Ole Miss has Bam Doyne, Todd Abernethy, Londrick Nolen, Clarence Sanders and Brian Smith, five guards who are better players than Ferguson, Jefferson and McCurdy.  Doyne is showing he's a real D-I player and is the guy best positioned to do the "Arkansas overlooked me, so I'm gonna kill them" thing we know so well.  Brandon Patterson is there too, but he has been awful this season.

Their only legitimate big man is Dwayne Curtis, who transferred from Auburn, and he is good except for his free throws.  Very good post scorer, which will be trouble for us as usual.

I think we gotta keep Curtis from killing us and take advantage of Brewer against whomever they try to put on him.  Also need to hurt them on the defensive boards.  They can hurt us from outside if we don't contest their shots, but if we get up to them they are not great shooters.

As for better talent than Kentucky, we have nobody as good at their respective positions as Rajon Rondo and Randolph Morris.  Rekalin Sims looked really good early in the season, but Tubby changed his offense + Sims suddenly didn't fit.  Later he developed back problems.  I'd take Patrick Sparks and Ravi Moss as shooters.  Most of this season, Sparks has been a no-show, but Tubby's starting to put the team in his hands.  Joe Crawford has been a bust.

Look at Kentucky's roster, and their recruiting strategy starts to look strange.  Brandon Stockton, Lukasz Obrzut, Bobby Perry, Shagari Alleyne, Sheray Thomas, Adam Williams, Jared Carter.  What a bunch of stiffs to be found on a Kentucky roster.

We will have a hard time handling their backcourt of Sparks and Rondo.  They cannot match up with Brewer and, if he's on, Townes.  Hard to trust our guards enough to win at Rupp.  Last year, their good team beat us by 1 as Townes had a good game, our guards were awful, we killed them on the boards, but Brewer had a 4-14 shooting day and Charles Thomas played 27 minutes with 0 points and 4 boards.  Modica played a subordinate role and was not very good.  A strong game from Modica would be great.

Don't forget how Ferguson took it upon himself to fire up the last shot last year, which was a really ill-advised 3-point attempt.  His chronic tendency is to view himself as the man in crunch time instead of realizing what is role is.  One of these days, I hope Brewer gets to take a game-deciding shot, and I hope he makes it.

[dukefan]

At this point every week is important!

[Mike Tencleve]

The hogs need a lot of wins to get to the big dance, it starts this week. Well it started a while back, but we can't go back and replay the games!

[Adam Stokes]

I think so.

The Auburn win was one they should have won and did. It was nothing special. Going 1-1 this week wasn't good, and maybe not even mediocre. Anytime you get happy about beating the worse team in the SEC you know your not much.

Anyways back to business. Ole Miss should be a nice 15-20 point win but then we go to Rupp for our yearly rivalry game and oddly enough the biggest game of the year. We have better talent, and should win...will they?

I say they once again lose one they are SHOULD to and go 1-1. Until they prove to me they can I won't be picking them. Another mediocre week for Defeat and his players. I hope I'm wrong.

BAT

  Any win on the road is special with this team.  We shouldn't be exstatic* about it, but I'm happy whenever we win, especially on the road.  You can't count us out against Kentucky, we beat Kansas and Kansas smacked em' down earlier in the year, though it wasn't in Rupp Arena.  I think Ole Miss will be closer than alot of people think too, they are 3-1 and their only loss was on the road.  Both will be close games in my opinion.

[silvertip]

Bat, if we beat Ole Miss by 15-20 I'll be very pleased and surprised. Pleased because that's what the outcome SHOULD be. Surprised given our history against them. The Rebels did win at Alabama, regardless of the circumstances (Bama's best player going down with a knee injury).

Barnes has been fiddling with his starting lineup a lot this year. Their best games seem to be when they start four guards. Bet they don't have the guts to try that against us. That means getting some stiff like Parnell or Smith in the starting lineup. Maybe returning to Arkansas will turn them into demons against us.

Ole Miss has been running a good offense this year, producing a lot of easy baskets, the kind of stuff we have trouble stopping. Maybe Hill can snuff out some of that. Unlike typical Barnes, this year the Rebels are not fouling like crazy and not rebounding very well either.

Interesting thing about this game is Ole Miss has Bam Doyne, Todd Abernethy, Londrick Nolen, Clarence Sanders and Brian Smith, five guards who are better players than Ferguson, Jefferson and McCurdy. Doyne is showing he's a real D-I player and is the guy best positioned to do the "Arkansas overlooked me, so I'm gonna kill them" thing we know so well. Brandon Patterson is there too, but he has been awful this season.

Their only legitimate big man is Dwayne Curtis, who transferred from Auburn, and he is good except for his free throws. Very good post scorer, which will be trouble for us as usual.

I think we gotta keep Curtis from killing us and take advantage of Brewer against whomever they try to put on him. Also need to hurt them on the defensive boards. They can hurt us from outside if we don't contest their shots, but if we get up to them they are not great shooters.

As for better talent than Kentucky, we have nobody as good at their respective positions as Rajon Rondo and Randolph Morris. Rekalin Sims looked really good early in the season, but Tubby changed his offense + Sims suddenly didn't fit. Later he developed back problems. I'd take Patrick Sparks and Ravi Moss as shooters. Most of this season, Sparks has been a no-show, but Tubby's starting to put the team in his hands. Joe Crawford has been a bust.

Look at Kentucky's roster, and their recruiting strategy starts to look strange. Brandon Stockton, Lukasz Obrzut, Bobby Perry, Shagari Alleyne, Sheray Thomas, Adam Williams, Jared Carter. What a bunch of stiffs to be found on a Kentucky roster.

We will have a hard time handling their backcourt of Sparks and Rondo. They cannot match up with Brewer and, if he's on, Townes. Hard to trust our guards enough to win at Rupp. Last year, their good team beat us by 1 as Townes had a good game, our guards were awful, we killed them on the boards, but Brewer had a 4-14 shooting day and Charles Thomas played 27 minutes with 0 points and 4 boards. Modica played a subordinate role and was not very good. A strong game from Modica would be great.

Don't forget how Ferguson took it upon himself to fire up the last shot last year, which was a really ill-advised 3-point attempt. His chronic tendency is to view himself as the man in crunch time instead of realizing what is role is. One of these days, I hope Brewer gets to take a game-deciding shot, and I hope he makes it.

Thanks for the good analysis, BP.

I've always liked Barnes as a coach. In fact, I was hoping he would get a good look at replacing Nolan. His teams always play us hard & love to beat us with Arkie kids that aren't "good enough" to be Hawgs.

Here we are again with people setting the table for more whining, if we don't blow the Rebs out. Living in the ancient past of the glory years, and not respecting your opponents will just give you ulcers, guys. I'm going to go look at RPIs. Wouldn't surprise me if Rebs are ranked higher than Hogs, maybe higher than Bama. Be happy with a win, period. I've never seen a Barnes team just "mail it in."

[Hogs4Ever]

I think they will be Ole Piss.  I just don't see them getting it done at UK unless brewer scores 40.   

[Biggus Piggus]

I did not understand the griping after the 16-point win at Auburn.  So we were supposed to do that.  How often have the Hogs done what they were supposed to do in the SEC under Heath?  Take away a few Vanderbilt games (in which we had the rare outperformance) and it hasn't happened much.  Consider the routine road blowout to be a breakthrough, guys.  Auburn is better than Ole Miss was last season when we won at Oxford.  Will it lead anywhere, who knows.  This team has not traveled a straight line.

Ole Miss, according to Warren Nolan's RPI, is 95th while we're 60th.  They got dinged by losing to Georgia, which rose up a lot with the win.  BTW, Ole Miss's schedule strength isn't in the top 200.  I recall having pointed out Florida's weak schedule prior to the road trip to Tennessee.

In the RPI, the distance between No.1 Duke and No.10 Pitt is 94 basis points.  The distance between No. 50 and No. 100 is 39 basis points.  Below the top 38, there's a group of 42 teams that are all pretty close in RPI.  These teams are similar for different reasons.  Some have won a lot against a weak schedule.  Some have played OK against a tough schedule.  Some like us are in between.  These ratings are far from settled.  Just a couple of good wins separate the bottom of the top 40 from that pileup all the way down to about No. 100.

If you look at the RPI data, you see how important it is to avoid playing the bottom 90 teams, which fall in the wrong tail of the distribution.  Their RPI values fall off so quickly, they do exaggerated damage to schedule strength, not to mention the waste of time they are as games go.  The Hogs played seven teams in the bottom 90 this year, too many, close to 2x our fair share.  Four's more like it.  Last year we had nine, not much improvement.

[three]

First of all, the win at Auburn was great. Any road win in the SEC is great.  The problem is, it only took 23 AU turnovers, a career night for Brewer (career high in pts, and in FTs made).   I was not encouraged with anything from that game EXCEPT ONE THING.  Ronnie took that game over (at points).  He disappeared at moments, too, like he always does.  But Ronnie decided his team was going to win saturday, and they did, granted against the SEC bottomdweller.

Last year, against Miss. State at home, when the hogs were reeling and desperate for a good quality win, Brew took the last shot, and either barely hit iron or flat out airballed, I can't remember.  Against Bama, he was looking for the last shot, and was flat out pissed when Stan called a TO as he made his move.  That signifies Ronnies growth and hunger this season.  Not only does he want that last shot, not only does he only trust himself to take it, but he knows he can make a play, I didn't see that a year ago.  I hope he stays another year, because I think he's one more year away from recognizing when he needs to take over and being capable of making it happen on a consistent basis. 

I can tell you this, he's tired of losing, and I get the feeling he may feel like he's been handicapped by poor coaching.  Ronnie seems to have the idea that the only way for this team to win is for him to be in complete control.  It almost seems like, just from watching him in practice last week, that he doesn't care for Heath anymore, not that he doesn't like him, he just seems to have the attitude, "if we win, it's because of me."  If he continues with that hunger and doesn't get deterred with losses, he could carry this team to a pretty nice run.

Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. UK may not be as dominant, but Rondo and Sparks get the job done in crunch time, and Morris keeps them close in between.  Everyone across the league knows this team is very talented, they come to play Arkansas like the hogs of the 90s, the problem is the coaching isn't good enough to override that.  It's officially all fallen on Ronnie, if he sets the tempo and leads the way, and this team can at least provide some help, they'll be fine, BUT, if Ronnie has those 5-10 minutes spans when he disappears, and they lose a few more, and guys start to quit, and Stan start's calling timeouts to allow the defense to set up (as far as I can tell, that's all his TOs ever do, the play's he draws up are consistently let Ronnie dribble around and jack up a three, very little movement or passing), this team will quit, and the year will be done, and maybe Stan will be, too.  I hope Ronnie's up to it, but I'm afraid it's too steap a task.

[three]

CollegeRPI.com makes little sense to me at this point in the season. Maybe it will at the end. UNC-Wilmington and Temple ahead of us? I don't see how. Look at the respective schedules.

And talk about eratic, is there any team more eratic than Temple? Beat Bama and S.Carolina and lost by 30 to Auburn.

BP, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the point is that this team has not played nearly as tough a schedule as many would have you believe.  Evident by the fact they've reverted to the ways of last season thus far in conferece play.  Yes, it was nice to go to Maui and play a Kansas team pre-maturity (I don't believe Arkansas could beat them now, they've grown up quite a bit), and get pretty well manhandled by UConn and Maryland, games this team was in for a while, and let slip away in the second half.  Sound familiar?  That's become the norm for Stan's teams.  Basically, you look at the schedule, they still didn't play a whole lot of great teams, it was better than last year, but not that much better, and that could be why you're seeing the same things we saw last season.

[Niels Boar]

Bat, if we beat Ole Miss by 15-20 I'll be very pleased and surprised. Pleased because that's what the outcome SHOULD be. Surprised given our history against them. The Rebels did win at Alabama, regardless of the circumstances (Bama's best player going down with a knee injury).

Barnes has been fiddling with his starting lineup a lot this year. Their best games seem to be when they start four guards. Bet they don't have the guts to try that against us. That means getting some stiff like Parnell or Smith in the starting lineup. Maybe returning to Arkansas will turn them into demons against us.

Ole Miss has been running a good offense this year, producing a lot of easy baskets, the kind of stuff we have trouble stopping. Maybe Hill can snuff out some of that. Unlike typical Barnes, this year the Rebels are not fouling like crazy and not rebounding very well either.

Interesting thing about this game is Ole Miss has Bam Doyne, Todd Abernethy, Londrick Nolen, Clarence Sanders and Brian Smith, five guards who are better players than Ferguson, Jefferson and McCurdy. Doyne is showing he's a real D-I player and is the guy best positioned to do the "Arkansas overlooked me, so I'm gonna kill them" thing we know so well. Brandon Patterson is there too, but he has been awful this season.

Their only legitimate big man is Dwayne Curtis, who transferred from Auburn, and he is good except for his free throws. Very good post scorer, which will be trouble for us as usual.

I think we gotta keep Curtis from killing us and take advantage of Brewer against whomever they try to put on him. Also need to hurt them on the defensive boards. They can hurt us from outside if we don't contest their shots, but if we get up to them they are not great shooters.

As for better talent than Kentucky, we have nobody as good at their respective positions as Rajon Rondo and Randolph Morris. Rekalin Sims looked really good early in the season, but Tubby changed his offense + Sims suddenly didn't fit. Later he developed back problems. I'd take Patrick Sparks and Ravi Moss as shooters. Most of this season, Sparks has been a no-show, but Tubby's starting to put the team in his hands. Joe Crawford has been a bust.

Look at Kentucky's roster, and their recruiting strategy starts to look strange. Brandon Stockton, Lukasz Obrzut, Bobby Perry, Shagari Alleyne, Sheray Thomas, Adam Williams, Jared Carter. What a bunch of stiffs to be found on a Kentucky roster.

We will have a hard time handling their backcourt of Sparks and Rondo. They cannot match up with Brewer and, if he's on, Townes. Hard to trust our guards enough to win at Rupp. Last year, their good team beat us by 1 as Townes had a good game, our guards were awful, we killed them on the boards, but Brewer had a 4-14 shooting day and Charles Thomas played 27 minutes with 0 points and 4 boards. Modica played a subordinate role and was not very good. A strong game from Modica would be great.

Don't forget how Ferguson took it upon himself to fire up the last shot last year, which was a really ill-advised 3-point attempt. His chronic tendency is to view himself as the man in crunch time instead of realizing what is role is. One of these days, I hope Brewer gets to take a game-deciding shot, and I hope he makes it.

Georgia beat Ole Miss by turning them over and, surprisingly, dominating the boards.  It was mainly UGA's guards that did all the rebounding.  The Dawgs outquicked Ole Miss.  Ole Miss hadn't been too bad in the ballhandling category until that game.  They are only averaging 13 a game after turning it over 18 times against UGA.  If we don't pressure them, they probably won't gush TO's, but pressure can obviously bother them.  Abernathy is a key to their offense.  If he's making treys, they are pretty good at putting the biscuit in the basket. 

Their defensive numbers are strange.  Why is Ole Miss playing man such a lousy defensive rebounding team?  They are getting killed on the boards.  Their opponents are averagingi 5 more FGAs per game on equal FTAs, but somehow they are 3-1 in the SEC.  Their interior defense has been lousy, but they don't let anybody make a three.  That's not exactly how you want to defend us.  They also foul like crazy (24 FTAs/SEC game).  We should be able to outscore them at home.  Their one strength that gives me pause is that their man is disruptive, and our ballhandling has looked suspect the last couple of games. They allow very low A/FG and A/possession numbers.

[NATEHOGG216]

First of all, the win at Auburn was great. Any road win in the SEC is great. The problem is, it only took 23 AU turnovers, a career night for Brewer (career high in pts, and in FTs made). I was not encouraged with anything from that game EXCEPT ONE THING. Ronnie took that game over (at points). He disappeared at moments, too, like he always does. But Ronnie decided his team was going to win saturday, and they did, granted against the SEC bottomdweller.

Last year, against Miss. State at home, when the hogs were reeling and desperate for a good quality win, Brew took the last shot, and either barely hit iron or flat out airballed, I can't remember. Against Bama, he was looking for the last shot, and was flat out pissed when Stan called a TO as he made his move. That signifies Ronnies growth and hunger this season. Not only does he want that last shot, not only does he only trust himself to take it, but he knows he can make a play, I didn't see that a year ago. I hope he stays another year, because I think he's one more year away from recognizing when he needs to take over and being capable of making it happen on a consistent basis.

I can tell you this, he's tired of losing, and I get the feeling he may feel like he's been handicapped by poor coaching. Ronnie seems to have the idea that the only way for this team to win is for him to be in complete control. It almost seems like, just from watching him in practice last week, that he doesn't care for Heath anymore, not that he doesn't like him, he just seems to have the attitude, "if we win, it's because of me." If he continues with that hunger and doesn't get deterred with losses, he could carry this team to a pretty nice run.

Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. UK may not be as dominant, but Rondo and Sparks get the job done in crunch time, and Morris keeps them close in between. Everyone across the league knows this team is very talented, they come to play Arkansas like the hogs of the 90s, the problem is the coaching isn't good enough to override that. It's officially all fallen on Ronnie, if he sets the tempo and leads the way, and this team can at least provide some help, they'll be fine, BUT, if Ronnie has those 5-10 minutes spans when he disappears, and they lose a few more, and guys start to quit, and Stan start's calling timeouts to allow the defense to set up (as far as I can tell, that's all his TOs ever do, the play's he draws up are consistently let Ronnie dribble around and jack up a three, very little movement or passing), this team will quit, and the year will be done, and maybe Stan will be, too. I hope Ronnie's up to it, but I'm afraid it's too steap a task.

Wow that was one hell of a post! Sounds about right.  Plus one for you