Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports podcast.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: And now here's your host, Matt Jones.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: On today's show, we talk Razorback basketball. Their win over UCA last night at Bud Walton Arena. Also, what we've learned through three games this season. First, a word from Kendall King.
[00:00:13] Speaker C: Kendall King, we're proud of over four decades of design.
We're continuing the legacy of great creative design by combining our brands of Kendall King, Soapbox and Shopcart. Together, these brands represent a new focus in marketing design with individual attention to specific areas.
Through our design expertise, supported by a team of talented professionals, we showcase our best. We are Kendall King. We are Soapbox. We are Shopcart. We are design.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Arkansas basketball 2, 1. Now, after a 93:56 win over UCA last night at Budwalton arena, this is one of those classic games where if you're just kind of a scoreboard gazer and you didn't watch the game, you say, well, Arkansas was a 34 and a half point favorite. They won by 37.
They did exactly what they were supposed to do.
Yes and no. This is also one of those games where Anthony Christensen's here in studio with me. Anthony, if you, if you analyze this game, you might look like a fool one way or the other. So with that out there, let's go.
On one hand, yes, they did cover the point spread. Yes, they did win by a margin of victory that you think that they would beat UCA by. On the other hand, you watch a large swath of this game and, and you say Arkansas didn't play very well. There really were two key stretches in this game. Arkansas started on a 22 to 7 run over the first seven minutes of the game. They ended the game on a 23 to 6 run over the last eight minutes of the game. You take the other 25 minutes, though, when they outscored UCA 48 to 43, went through large chunks of this game where they just didn't look like they were playing very good basketball. And this is a UCA team that, quite frankly, I think that if you, if you have Arkansas playing at a higher level and you have that first seven minutes and you have that last eight minutes, this is a game you probably win by 50 plus points. And so I think that, you know, that was kind of the takeaway that I had from listening to John Caliperi last night over at the arena was, yes, they won. But I think one of the first things he said is we got a lot of things that we need to work on in Practice?
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And I remember there was like a stretch in the, in the first half when UCA I think cut it down to I think five, seven points, something like that. So it was, it was. Yeah, it's close enough to keep it interesting.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: I think it was 25, Arkansas going up 22 to 7. Then it's a 25 to 18 game. Yeah, I think Carter Knox hits a 3 and then at that point I think the closest UCA got again was nine.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it wasn't. It. The result was never really in doubt, nor should it be because I mean frankly Arkansas is a much better team than Central Arkansas. Not to say Central Arkansas doesn't have, you know, some, some good pieces. Cameron Hunter is a guy who can play. I really was impressed by Ty Robinson. But you know the, it, there were some stretches where it, it kind of became just kind of like, you know, a little, little ISO ball I guess just a little too much of.
I think I want to say John Caliperi called it like me basketball or something like that. I don't remember exactly how he phrased it, but yeah, I mean there were some stretches where, where it was like that, where Arkansas just kind of, you know, I, I guess just kind of let go of, let go of it a little bit. But I mean, I guess that's a little human nature. When you're winning, you know, by almost 40, you can, you know, it's not going to come back to bite you. But you know, there, there, there were some definite concerns. I mean, John, Cal Perry said that he wanted to limited, he wanted to limit Central Arkansas to about 23 point attempts. I ended with 41, obviously only hit four of them. But, but, but still, I mean, so there's, there's some lapses there. Even though that's two consecutive games where Arkansas has held its opponent to less than 10% shooting from the three point line. Which, you know, UCA and Michigan State aren't exactly known for their three point shooting. Well, UCA is known for shooting a lot of three pointers. They just don't make a lot of them. Not known for making them, but yeah, exactly.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: 4 of 41. 4 of 41. I, I don't know that I've ever seen a team go that bad from three point range.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: I don't think I have either.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: But Michigan State, where were they? One for 12, one for 14.
And so, you know, they were bad. In fact, their percentage probably was lower than UCA's percentage.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: It was 7% to I think 9% or something like that.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: When you take 41, like the, it's, it's the percentage and the volume of threes that UCA took and I knew they were missing a lot of them. I didn't realize it was that big because I wasn't paying attention to the stats during the game and I was kind of floored whenever I looked at that at the end. Like they went 4 for 41 from 3 point range.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean that's, that's, that's kind of, I guess the recipe that they were going for was, I mean they're not going to be able to match Arkansas for athleticism. So try to beat them from range.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: I guess that's the Mike Neighbors approach.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Yes, but. Yeah, so that was, that was, that was that and I think they had a pretty similar approach last year when they, when they played in North Little Rock. And I mean, to be fair, I mean that, that, that kind of approach did get them into the A Sun tournament last year for the first time in a few years. So if it works, it works. But it definitely didn't work last night. But yeah, there were certainly some times in which, you know, Arkansas, you know, certainly wasn't at its best.
You know, is that, is that necessarily a concern? I don't really know because I mean it's, it's Central Arkansas. You're pretty much, you know, you don't want to say guaranteed to win because you obviously you'll have teams that walk in and beat power conference teams. That happened last night with Central Connecticut State walking into Boston College and getting a win there. Obviously Arkansas is much better than Boston in college, but still, you know, you can, you can lose games like that is the overarching point. And you know, they, they won pretty handily. So I, I don't know that it's, it's a huge concern, but there's certainly things that, you know, like John Caliperi said that they do need to get better at.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that is a dig, by the way. Mike Neighbors. That really was the approach. It was. If you were going to be out, you know, athleted inside say against a South Carolina and you know you're going to have trouble stopping them and you know you're going to get out. Read it bounded by like 50 like they did in that one game a year or two ago, then how do you counteract that? You need to shoot a ton of three pointers and hope that they're going to fall that day to give yourself a chance. And you look at the times whenever his teams won some of their biggest games. That was the key. It was that they were really hot from three point range and then there were times where they played those teams and they'd lose to them by 40, 50 points because the three wasn't falling.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we saw that when they went to ucla, I think last season, two seasons ago, something like that.
And, and South Carolina as well, like you mentioned. But, but yeah, no, it's, it's, it's an approach that is obviously a risky one because, I mean, you know, three point shots are not easy to make, especially when you've got, you know, very good athletes on the perimeter guarding you. So.
Yeah, I mean it, it can work. It's not the, it's. I mean, nothing surefire in basketball, but. Yeah.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Some stats to know. Darius Acuff, 21 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 34 minutes for Arkansas last night. He had 17 of his points in the second half. He was really good after halftime. Carter Knox, 19 points, 10 rebounds in 23 minutes. He got off to a blazing hot start, was really good in the first 12 minutes of that game. In fact, I think of the under 12 minute timeout, I had him at 14 points, seven rebounds, one block and one steal. He really made an early impact during that big run that Arkansas had to open the game. And then Malik Thomas, 17 points, six rebounds, six assists for him. 33 minutes, no turnovers. Key stat there. Arkansas, just eight turnovers. Both of these teams, just eight turnovers. I think, you know, it, it again because UCA was able to hang around like they were for so long and, and not really be in the game, but be within that 70 run of getting back into the game, kind of being within striking distance, close enough to.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Keep it semi interesting.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Caliperi said this last night. He said that he thought they probably had a lot more turnovers and he looked at it like there were only.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Eight and he said it was, you know, I was, I was upset with a lot of our turnovers and then I looked and we only had eight.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: So let's see.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Malik, you win 10 points for the Razorbacks. And Nick Pringles almost said Pringles because we were talking about Pringles last time.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: We were talking about Pringles.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: Nine points and eight rebounds for Pringle. He made all, you know, what kind.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Of Pringles are your favorite or are you sticking the red? Classic red can. That's what I'm doing.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Yeah, if, if I had to go with the green can, I would. But the red can that's sometimes you.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Can go with like the specialty flavors, so you can't go wrong with a little barbecue.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: I mean, we look this up though, like the number, some weird ones, the number of Pringle flavors that are out there is kind of mind numbing, to be honest with you. I didn't realize that there was that much. Yeah, Trevin Brazil didn't play. They say that he had back spasms.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Minor back spasms.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Minor, minor back spasms. John Calipari was asked after the game if he thought that he would play Friday against Samford. And he said, I don't know.
So there's your Trevin Brazil update. We'll talk about Trevin a little bit later when we get into offensive rebounding and Arkansas's lack or Arkansas's kind of their knack to give up a lot of offensive rebounds and second chance points in these last couple of games.
Let's start with this. Acuff Caliperi said that he wants him to get 10. He wants him to get more sense. And so, you know, you got this opportunity, you can, you can tell that I think he's happy with, like, if you were going to give Darius Acuff and Malik Thomas a grade right now, if you're John Calipari, I think he's going to give him a high grade for early on. But, you know, whenever he's given these opportunities to praise them, it's no, they need to do this better. They need to do this. Last night would have been a perfect time. After Acuff goes for 21 points, made 9 of 16 shots, was 3 of 8 from the field or from three point range, four assists, two turnovers, not a terrible game, six rebounds. A good, you know, a good game for him. But it was not about the scoring that Caliper wanted to talk about. He wanted to talk about, hey, I think you said, what kind of lead guard could he be if he gave us 10 assists?
So clearly wanting to see more out of him in that point guard role.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Not just, not just him either, but with Carter Knox too. I asked about Carter Knox getting the double double, especially after, you know, he played pretty poorly at Michigan State. And the first thing he said was, I think he's pressing too much.
But yeah, so, I mean, he's got, he's got high expectations for these guys. He's got high hopes for these guys, which I think is, you know, something that you're going to be happy about if you're, if you're an Arkansas fan, that he's not just kind of, you know, saying yeah, these guys are playing well, but you know, he still wants to see more from them. And I think that's probably, that's probably good, especially with the freshman. Right? I mean you look at, you look at Darius Acuff and I thought he, he did have a good game still, you know, and I do think that there were some times where he could have found an open man instead of going for a shot, you know, and still ended up with four assists. That's not, you know, a number to scoff at by any means. But yeah, I mean if you, if you do get him to a 10 assist number, which is, you know, a very, very large number, especially in the college game, you know, that would, that would open up a lot of different avenues for Arkansas. I mean, you'd be looking at, you know, probably Malik Thomas getting, getting a few more looks, getting D.J. wagner a few more looks when, you know, he, he probably needs them, especially, you know, if he's playing as well as he did against Michigan State, you know, so, so I think obviously that would open up a lot of, a lot of different doors if that makes sense for, for Arkansas, if he can, if he can raise that number up to 10, which like I said, that's a, that's a, that's a high number for, for college basketball. I know Braden Smith at Purdue's, you know, know, he hovers around there but, but I mean that's a guy who's maybe going to break Bobby Hurley's all time assist record this year, which is quite the record.
But yeah, it would open up a lot of different things, a lot of different avenues that Arkansas could, could do. I mean you could find, you know, Pringle, Ewan Brazil inside, you know, with, with some of those and then it open up, you know, three point looks as well. So there's, there's certainly things to like and you know, I've just kind of started rambling. I don't even remember what you originally.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Said, but yeah, I thought Arkansas passed the ball really well early in the game. Yeah, like it felt that was one of the big keys that I was looking at going into the game yesterday because I just did not think they worked for their shot enough against Michigan state. First half, 12 assists on 15 made shots.
So that's a, that's a great number. Second half, five assists on 16 made shots. Now some of this is that there were two or three instances in the second half where somebody's pulling up transition three and they made it. I mean, I Know, Acuff made at least one of those, maybe two. I think Billy Richmond made one. Malik Thomas may have made one in the second half.
So there's some of that going on there. You know, some of it is DJ Wagner flashes and makes a steal and, you know, leaves it off for somebody to dunk it behind him. I think it was Malik Ewan, so I guess that would be an assist, wouldn't it? But the point being that, you know, some of it is just kind of natural flow of basketball.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: But it did feel like going back to what you said, whether it's me basketball or ISO ball or whatever the phrase was used.
I think you could sense in Caliperi's words last night that he wants to see the ball movement. And again, talking about Darius Acuff with only four assists. He wants to see the ball movement get a lot better with this team.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think especially, you know, looking, looking inside, I think he, he had made comment that he thought that they settled for too many threes. I mean, they ended up taking 34 three pointers in that game. So I think he, he certainly wants to see the ball go inside more, get those, you know, easier looks at the basket, especially when Malik Ewan and, and, and Nick Pringle are playing as well as they did. I mean, they, they combined for 19 points and hit, I think, what was it, seven of their eight combined shots. So, you know, those guys, you know, when they're playing that well, I mean, get the ball inside to them, you know, especially when they're, when they're overmatched against, you know, a team like, like uca. No disrespect to them. It's just, you know, they don't have the same size or athleticism that Arkansas has.
But yeah, I think that's certainly, you know, an area that he, that he was kind of harping on. I don't harping on, maybe a little, little too extreme of a way to put it, but he certainly wants to see more of it if that.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: If.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Sorry, go ahead.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: No, I was just going to say so. Yeah, I mean, he wants to see it go inside more as opposed to, you know, settling for, for threes, even though, I mean, they, you know, 38.2% from 3 is not like, you know, it's not, it's not a bad number by any means. It's not like they went out and shot 45%. But, but still, I mean, he, I think he wants to see the ball go inside a little bit more, for sure.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: They have to play up to their potential to get there. But I think with what Carter Knox, and he even made this comment last night, he played terribly against Michigan State. And I think some of it is understood because of just coming back from the injury. Russia, they didn't get anything from Trevin Brazil about East Lansing for the most part, you know, certainly not the type of game that you would expect from him. I feel like if you had Knox playing at that level that he played last night and you had Trevin Brazil even giving you, you know, something toward what you usually get from him, I think they win that game against Michigan State, probably. So that shows you there's a lot of potential for this team. And we'll talk more big picture with this team here in just a minute. But I thought what Knox gave them last night, because I think he's going to have to drop down and play in the post some for this team. And I thought, you know, I know points wise, he was doing a lot of his work from the perimeter, but I thought the aggressiveness that he showed inside, getting rebounds, just, you know, kind of getting down and dirty inside, that was. That was a good sign.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah, he said that he wanted to get 20 and 20, so he was a little short on the points part and got halfway there on the rebounds.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: But no, I only played 23 minutes, so 19 and 10. That's.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Yeah, he was. He was.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: I know, I know he wants 20 and 20, but I don't know anybody's gonna get 20, 20 in 23 minutes.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah, not a lot of players are gonna do that. He's not Victor Wembanyama, but. Yeah, no, I thought, I thought Carter Knox was exceptional last night. I thought. I thought that was, you know, coming off of probably his worst performance in his college career at Michigan State, which, you know, like we said, you know, little asterisks maybe because maybe some rust maybe coming off the toe sprain and stuff like that maybe slowed him down a little bit. But I thought he was, you know, he looked like he did, you know, in the NCAA tournament last year when he was, you know, a big reason why they made their Sweet 16 run.
And I mean, he.
And he owned up to, you know, he said. I think it was. I think he said that if I played as well as I did tonight, then we probably would have beaten Michigan State, which I think is, you know, I think is a fair comment. You know, obviously, you know, Michigan State is a much better team than Central Arkansas. But. But still, I mean, that. That's the kind of performance that, that Arkansas is going to need from Carter Knox, I think going forward. You know, not that you're expecting him to average a double double, but, you know, you need him to, you know, play that well. You need him to be your best or your second best player on the floor. If Arkansas is going to, you know, do what, what it wants to do and if Carter Knox is going to, you know, achieve some of the individual accolades that he's kind of wanting, he, he wants to be in that SEC player of the year race. He wants to be, you know, on the all defensive team. So you know, that, that, that kind of performance is what's going to land him in those, in those conversations. So no, I thought, I thought he was phenomenal last night for sure.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: And I say this knowing full well the difference between Michigan State and uca. I keep wanting to call UCA Memphis, by the way, for some reason, I don't know why, but the difference between Michigan State and uca, especially, you know, on the interior.
But you look at Michigan State.
Yeah, if you look at Michigan state, his numbers, zero points, four rebounds, four turnovers and 18 minutes last night, 19 points, 10 rebounds, two turnovers in 23 minutes and a block and a steel even.
Even taking the difference in competition level into account, that's a huge difference from, from one game to the next.
All right, when we come back, we're going to talk more Razorback basketball. Some big picture thoughts on this team. Already 10% of the way through the regular season. Kind of hard to believe, but we'll talk about that in a moment. First, another word from Kendall King.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: Kindle King. We're proud of over four decades of design.
We're continuing the legacy of great creative design by combining our brands of Kendall King Soapbox and Shopcart. Together, these brands represent a new focus in marketing design with individual attention to specific areas.
Through our design expertise, supported by a team of talented professionals, we showcase our best. We are Kendall King. We are Soapbox. We are Shopcart. We are Design.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Welcome back. I want to tell you about our friends at Bentonville Glass. They've been serving their community since 1971. They are committed, professional and versatile. If you're looking for a quality leader in northwest Arkansas or looking for skilled craftsmanship, look no further than Bentonville Glass for all your glass market needs with the highest quality products. You can come by and see them at 507 South Main in Bentonville or online at bentonville glass.com A note from Saturday night's game against Michigan State. Let Me make sure I've got this number right here.
The audience for this game between Arkansas and Michigan State averaged 1.6 million people. So if you wonder what that means, 1 point means that they measure every 15 minutes the Nielsen ratings do. And so that if you take from the tip off to the end of the game, you take all those 15 minute windows and the number of people watching Arkansas, Michigan State On Fox averaged 1.677 million people.
And you think about that in terms of there was a, it's a Saturday night college football.
There were some other games going on on ABC.
LSU, Alabama got 7.54 million watching its game. Let's scroll down here. I know there was one other game. Oh, yeah, Navy and Notre Dame, 3.4 million. Watch that game on NBC.
There was no sporting event on CBS. The only other. The next, the next highest rated game on Saturday night was let's see your Wake Forest and Virginia on espn. That went on simultaneously. The Arkansas, Michigan State game and that football game averaged 734,000 viewers on, on ESPN. I got a couple of thoughts on this. Number one, it shows the brand power of college basketball. The fact that that came there, baby. You know, we don't have a breakdown of which states were watching this, but I'm going to guess the top three states were Arkansas, Michigan and Kentucky. We're watching this Arkansas, Michigan State game. I think we all know why. And you know, so there was some interest in this game.
College basketball is never going to outdraw college football.
It's just not going to happen.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Not if I have anything.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: You know, even, even a March Madness game is going to have a hard time out drawing maybe other than like the really big ones, games that, you know, Elite Eight, Final Four, national championship. They're going to have a hard time even out drawing the highest rated regular season college football games.
Arkansas, Michigan State, there's a bit of brand power there with those two teams.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: With those two coaches.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: I have. Yeah, with those coaches. And I think the Caliper effect is real.
I haven't seen the ratings yet for North Carolina, Kansas on Friday night. I will be surprised given the network that they were on, if that is above Arkansas, Michigan State. So I think that this is going to be the highest rated game to this point in the season. I don't think it's going to end up as the highest rated game. But 1.6 million, almost 1.7 for a college basketball game. That's a big number. That's good. That is a big number for a regular season.
College basketball game. The expectation is that Arkansas Duke will blow this out of the water on Thanksgiving on CBS.
I would suspect Arkansas and Kentucky might on January 31st when they play here in Fayetteville. But this is a strong number. I suspect that this is going to be one of the top, I don't know, maybe 10 to 15 numbers that you see in college basketball all season. So just kind of an interesting little deal there.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: It's good. It's good for the sport.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: The other thing is this ESPN, YouTube or Disney YouTube TV spat that now, you know, is the, I guess this is the longest running feud in the country now that the government's back open. But the, you know, I think it's affecting a lot of people where it's, you know, they don't, they're like, hey, look, I don't want to cave in anymore on this. I don't want to go to Hulu, I don't want to go to Sling. I don't want to go do like, I've got my service.
And you two figure this out. And until you do, I'm going to go look and see what else is on tv. I really believe, you know, you look at some of the numbers or find.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Some of those illegal streams. Yeah, we can't, we do not endorse.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: I think college football's numbers were down not this last Saturday because again, I haven't seen the full numbers from this last Saturday. But I think the Saturday before ESPN's numbers were down relative to.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: I think that's right.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Yeah. The week before, I think they tried to say, well, that was because the Blue Jays and the Dodgers were playing this epic Game seven of the World Series. And that probably played a.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: That was fun stuff, too.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: But I actually kind of think there may have been a lot of people who migrated over and watched Dodgers, Blue Jays, game seven because they were YouTube TV subscribers. And they, that was, that was basically what they had at their disposal that night when it came into terms of live tv.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was a great. I say this is, you know, not the world's greatest baseball aficionado, which I do enjoy baseball, like, don't get me wrong. But, you know, I turned most of the time, if I'm watching baseball, it's more obviously if I'm covering it and if, you know, the Cardinals are playing because I'm a, you know, I'm a good St. Louis boy. And other than that, it's mostly going to be background noise when I'm doing stuff around the apartment. But no that was a, that was a great game. I don't blame anybody for turning that on. That was, that was sensational entertainment. But I think you are, you are correct in saying that, you know, some of that is probably down to not the entertainment value but the viewership is probably down to some of this really fun YouTube TV spat.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: By the way, the government shutdown is not over here. Yeah, it just looks like it's going to end here pretty soon. Rumors, I don't know, I don't know that ESPN, YouTube TV or Disney and YouTube TV are anywhere near, you know.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: How bad you disagreeing if congressional gridlock is getting fixed?
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Before I heard a number and I don't, I don't want to repeat it but the number I heard yesterday somewhere and again, I don't even remember where I heard this but like the number that I heard that Disney and YouTube TV are apart is a massive number.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Oh good.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Where it feels like it's going to take a while and you know you get two sides there that are kind of. They got their heels dug in and you know they're a lot of pride going on between a couple of those, those big mega companies right there between Disney and YouTube.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: All right, DirecTV guy.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: Myself, I got DirecTV.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: There we go. Good stuff.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Are you on the satellite or are you on the stream?
[00:25:38] Speaker B: I'm on the stream.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: I'm on the satellite. So high five.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: That's fine. I' do it myself.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Moving on Arkansas, the last two games, I think if you want to really nitpick this team, the first thing that comes to my mind is the number of offensive rebounds that they're giving up. We know they gave up a really high offensive rebound total against Michigan State. Wasn't a huge number against UCA last night. 10 offensive rebounds for 16 second chance points. But you would think with the type of athletes that Arkansas has inside and you know what, what UCA has on its roster, that that number may not be a double digit number. Yeah, Dreven Brazil has not and he's played in the last two games. But I go back to, he barely played against Michigan State.
That's right, he's played within the last two games. I think is what I meant. Against Michigan State he played but he didn't really play anywhere near the number of minutes that you would expect from him. So when it comes to offensive rebounds, I want to ask you this. In the last two games have given up 29 offensive boards. How much do you think that is due to Trevin Brazil not really being on the Floor, or do you think that that even matters?
[00:26:48] Speaker B: I think it matters a little bit. I think, you know, he, he obviously had some foul trouble against Michigan State. And, you know, when he is, you know, he's, you know, he's, he's an athlete. You know, John Caliperi, you know, said he looks the part of, of a future NBA player and, you know, whether or not that comes to fruition, we'll see. But, you know, he's, you know, he's an athlete. He's a guy who can get boards. Right. I mean, we saw it against Southern, which obviously, you know, Southern is Southern, you know, and, and you know, a good swack team, but you, you're gonna more often than not beat a good SWAC team. But, you know, he, he put up a double double in that game and then against Michigan State, you know, he obviously didn't, didn't play well and, you know, had some foul trouble and had to, you know, sit out a lot.
So I do think that some of it is down to, you know, the past two games, him not being on the floor much or at all in the case of the, the Central Arkansas game.
But, you know, when, when you look at the, the front court just kind of as a whole, you know, Arkansas, you know, built this front court as to be a better rebounding team, you know, than, than it was last year, which, you know, let me pull up my Ken Palm here real quick. And you know, offensive rebounding for Arkansas is up, but offensive rebounding against Arkansas is also up.
So it's a little bit of a concern on the defensive end, you know, especially obviously Michigan State, you know, rebounding, you know, being gritty and physical, that's kind of the name of the game up in East Lansing. And, you know, they took advantage of that.
Ten offensive rebounds isn't, you know, a, you know, an asinine number. But, you know, against Central Arkansas, you would expect them to keep that into single digits, like you said. So is it a concern? I'll say maybe.
I'm not, I'm not ready to fully go on the yes train just yet. But right now, through three games, Arkansas's defensive rebounding percentage is number 171 in the country, per KenPom. And obviously that number is going to fluctuate a lot just because it's early in the season and, you know, teams are still, you know, playing. Some teams have only played one game so far. So I mean, that number is going to, it's going to fluctuate, probably change, you know, a good amount but still you don't, you would want to be better than the number 171 at this point, you know, even if it is, even if it is early. But yeah, I'd say, I'd say it's maybe a concern.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Okay, so the last two games, Arkansas's three point defense has been really good.
Is that Arkansas's three point defense being good or is that the opponent's shooting being really bad? And just for some time, for some context here, UCA in its other Division 1 game against North Carolina at 27 games, they got Champion Christian, they're sandwiched in between. So that offset.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: That was a tough one.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: 27 and a half percent they shot from 3 against UNC, they were 8 of 29. And then for Michigan State, you take the Arkansas game out of the equation. They have not played their third game yet. I think they play maybe on Friday, maybe Thursday this week. Anyway, they're three points shooting their first game, 28 and a half percent. So better than against Arkansas, but not a great number.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think some of it also kind of comes down to the opponent.
No disrespect to Colgate. I mean, that's a team that's been in five of the last eight NCAA tournaments, I want to say. So it's a very well coached. Matt Lingle does a really good job up there. But you know, Michigan State hitting 28% of its threes is not a good number for Michigan State. I mean, but yeah, so going against the defense from, from Colgate to Arkansas, maybe that is, you know, part of why that number drops so drastically.
But then you, and then the same thing with, with Central Arkansas, maybe that's, maybe that has something to do with it. And I asked John Calipari about this. Let me pull up my, my handy dandy little transcript here if I can find it.
But yeah, he, he wanted them to, he wanted Arkansas to limit Central Arkansas to about 23 point attempts and they ended up with 40.
So that I think.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: But is that, is that, is that a fault of Arkansas defensively or is.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: That a. I think maybe a little bit of both. I think it's because it's hard because.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: You know, you can go into a game and say, hey, we want to hold them to 20, but if they're pulling up from 30ft, you know, I mean, well, that's, that's their, that's their, you know, it's, that's their decision. Not necessarily anything that you were doing wrong.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And here's, here's exactly what he Said when I asked him about the three point defense, he said, well, we gave up and you saw it in the first half, we gave up a bunch. That's why the game was close. But we're getting better at saying we're guarding threes now. We wanted to hold them to 23s attempted, they got 40. We wanted to hold them to under six or seven and 20 attempts, which they. They did. They ended up hitting four.
And then he said, look, there's a lot of good. I'm not trying to get us to play perfect, but the biggest thing is just play the game and make the easy plays right now.
So. And then he kind of went back into, you know, ball movement and stuff like that. So, you know, I, I think there is, there is some of it, you know, being that he, he was a little disappointed that they ended up firing away on 40 of them. Some of them were, you know, just kind of. We're going to chuck and hope, but yeah, so.
And obviously neither of Michigan State or Central Arkansas are known for their three point shooting prowess, but I think, I think there were moments in which.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Prowess. Yeah, it's a. Prowess.
I don't know what the right.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: I, I've always said prowess.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's prowess. All right, we're gonna get to the bottom of this. Go ahead. I did not mean to derail your trailer.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: You're good. You're good. No, so, yeah, I think some of it is down to, you know, those teams obviously not being great shooting teams. But then, I think, you know, there were moments when Arkansas forced them into. Into bad looks late in the shot clock, you know, where you have really no other choice but to put up a, you know, an inefficient shot. So I think there, there's some, there's some of, you know, yeah, the three point defense has looked better in the last two games as opposed to what it did against, against Southern, because Southern hit, you know, a decent amount of threes. I don't remember the number exactly off the top of my head, but I remember Fazel Oshadi. I think I want to say that was his name. I can't remember exactly, but he hit five threes, you know, in that game for, for Southern. So I, I think it certainly looked better in the last two games. You've got your hand on the, You've got your finger on the volume button.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: I've got, I've got something pulled up here to say. How to say prowess.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Okay, we're gonna find out right here.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: All right, this Is. This is dangerous, but here we go.
Prowess.
Prowess.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Well, you know, maybe it's the Midwestern in me.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: Prowess.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: I'm gonna. I'm not changing.
I'm a. I'm a. I'm a stubborn son of a gun, so I'm. I'm.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: Prowess.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Prowess.
I'm. I don't know. I don't know if that's a Midwestern thing. Maybe it's a St. Louis thing. I. I was once told I have a St. Louis accent. Mm. I didn't know there was a St. Louis accent. I didn't. I just kind of thought I sounded like everybody else from the Midwest but me. I'll take it, but I'm staying with prowess.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: But. Prowess.
There you go.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Prowess.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: I'm gonna send this to you.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: I'm not changing. I'm not changing.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: I'm not.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: I'm not. I'm not doing it. I'm. I'm sticking with the way I've. I've been saying it my whole life.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: You nailed the Southern Guard's name, so that's. That's a lot harder than saying prowess.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: There we go.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Last thing before we get out of here. Anything in these first three games that's changed your.
I don't know if outlook's the right word, but just changed your perception of what you thought this team was going to be and maybe what they've been instead.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: I don't know that anything's really changed how I look at the team.
I think there are things that I think they need to do better at. I still think they need to be getting D.J. wagner more involved in the offense, and D.J. wagner needs to be more efficient. You know, he played well. Again, played well. Not played well. Played well against Michigan State.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Let me look up that word, too.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: No, no, no, we're good. We're good.
You know, he played well against Michigan State on the offensive end, but, you know, against Central Arkansas, against Southern, and even in the two exhibition games, you know, he wasn't, you know, all that efficient in any of those games. So, you know, you. I think. I still think that a lot of this team's success is going to come through D.J. wagner and how much he's going to be able to, you know, help the team on the offensive end. So I think that's. That's an area I'm definitely looking at and thinking they need to improve in just with him. And I think he can. Obviously. I. I think he's. He's the most experienced person. Most experienced player in. In this system and all that. So I think that's one thing. And then, you know, we touched on the rebounding a lot. I think, I think that that still needs to be better, especially with how much, you know, they, they put, you know, stock into, you know, the rebounding in the off season. Just how much they want to, they wanted to improve on that just because Arkansas obviously had a lot of its, a lot of its issues from last season came from, from rebounding and getting out rebounded. So I think you want to see those numbers continue to improve.
So I think those are the two things. But I don't know that I've had anything necessarily change my, my outlook or expectation for the team at all or not at all. But you know what I mean.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I gotcha. Here we go. One more time. Prowess.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: All right.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: I'm not changing.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Anthony. Appreciate you being in here.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: I am who I am.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: You could read all of Anthony's coverage @wholehog sports.com. hope you'll do that. We got plenty of coverage from the basketball game last night and quick turnaround before their next game against Sanford on the Acre team Friday. Friday night we're in the. I keep thinking to myself, what time is it? But then I remember we're in the seven o' clock SEC network plus run every game for a while. Seven o' clock on SEC Network plus. Yeah. All right, Anthony. Appreciate it. Hope that we see at our website whole hogsports.com we're have a little bit different of a show tomorrow. Jordan Weber, the Arkansas gymnastics coach, former gold medalist, is going to be at the Hogs Illustrated Sports Club. Christina Long, we'll have a Q and A with her there. We'll be back with a traditional show on Friday. Hope to see you then. Have a great day, everybody.
