We can’t say we weren’t warned.
The stats nerds (like us) began sounding the alarm after a lackluster win over Old Dominion in the third game of the season, but it’s a lot easier to point to the past and blindly chant that we should just trust Muss to drown out any criticism.
Meanwhile, here we are. In our model rankings, Arkansas has basically been parked between 100th and 120th in the nation in overall team efficiency since mid-November. They are 121st in today’s rankings. They peaked at +15.7 on December 7th – a month ago – which was good for 102nd. So at no point this year has Arkansas been a top-100 team per our models. Other models that had them higher – like Ken Pomeroy’s – use preseason rankings as a weight that slowly drops out over time in order to stabilize the early-season numbers, so the Hogs were getting a boost that was unrelated to how they’ve looked.
Previous Hog teams have overcome bad starts to SEC play under Eric Musselman, but none had a hill to climb nearly as big as this one. The 2021 team mostly improved after getting Justin Smith back from injury. The 2022 team’s improvement was mostly due to a decision to focus on JD Notae and Jaylin Williams and go with a bigger lineup. The 2023 team never made a big jump (it did go 7-5 in SEC play after a 1-5 start), but it always had great defense and the ability to grind out ugly games, even when it was losing.
This team does not have any clear buttons it can press. Here are the biggest issues:
- Shot selection. Arkansas takes midrange jumpers at one of the highest rates in the nation. Midrange jumpers are nice as a complement against certain types of defenses built to take away 3-pointers or shots at the rim (like drop coverages or some zones), but you cannot rely heavily on them as they are simply less efficient. A good day from midrange would be hitting 45% eFG%… but 45% eFG% would be a bad shooting day overall, because 3-pointers and shots at the rim generally go in at a higher rate. Arkansas isn’t as good this year at getting to the rim because while they have some drivers (like Khalif Battle and Keyon Menifield), they don’t have anyone that can create the total rim pressure that Anthony Black generated last year. Black operated in a horrible 3-point offense, but this year’s team is actually decent from beyond the arc. They just don’t scheme up very many open 3s because they are so focused on driving inside.
- Offensive rebounding. We could have seen this one coming, since Makhi Mitchell is a poor offensive rebounder and none of the incoming transfers were good offensive rebounders at their previous stops. It took Tramon Mark – who is 6’6 – a month and a half to get his first offensive board of the year. Offensive rebounding is how Arkansas’ 2021-23 teams that made tournament runs were able to grind out games. Look at Arkansas’ two offensive boards in the final minute of the Kansas game last year. This team can’t do that.
- Transition defense. This has been a problem in every game this season. Arkansas allows a ton of transition opportunities and opponents are generally very efficient when running against the Hogs. This seems like effort and basketball IQ as much as anything.
- Forcing turnovers. Muss’ defense is built on ball pressure, so most of his teams are at least decent at forcing turnovers. But this team has no lockdown defender and is among the worst in the SEC at forcing turnovers (and at ball pressure generally). Again, the transfers (even Mark) were not good at forcing turnovers at their last stops, so I don’t know what the plan was here. I guess the staff thought it could coach guys to get more steals? I don’t know, but it’s been a total failure if that was the plan.
- Preventing shots at the rim. Arkansas allows a ton of shots at the rim, and while they are decent at defending those shots, they allow too many. Opponents are not deterred by Arkansas’ apparent shot-block threats.
The offensive rebounding and forcing turnovers part are why I think this was a serious failure of roster building, because Arkansas signed a bunch of guys who were not good at these things, so I don’t know what the expectation was. Rebounds and turnovers, being worth no points, are important because they contribute to creating extra shot chances. Generating extra shot chances is how long and athletic but poor-shooting teams win games. Look at Houston under Kelvin Sampson, for example. Or even Arkansas the last few years, especially 2023. But to repeatedly allow opponents to get six, eight, even 10 more shot chances per game is such an un-Muss way of playing. You can overcome that by being a pinpoint shooting team like Jay Wright’s best Villanova teams, but Arkansas is very much not that, especially when they overemphasize driving inside only to pull up for inefficient midrange jumpers.
Many of these stats – turnovers, rebounds, transition – are related to effort and will to win, which this team doesn’t have. I don’t know what button to push, but it’s highly unlikely all this gets fixed. Arkansas probably has the same chance of making the NCAA Tournament than it does of going 6-12 in SEC play. That’s just realistic.
If you want to tighten the roster, here are the highest-ranking players by xRAPM so far this year:
- PG Keyon Menifield 86
- SG Tramon Mark 92
- W Khalif Battle 85
- F Jalen Graham 84
- F Makhi Mitchell 81
- Bench rotation: Chandler Lawson (78), Layden Blocker (75), Trevon Brazile (72)
- Outside the rotation: El Ellis (61), Jeremiah Davenport (59)
- I don’t know but it’s sad at this point: Devo Davis (57)
That starting five is probably an NIT team, based on those grades. Worse awaits if some of those lower-graded players keep getting minutes.
If you wondering what went wrong, consider that Arkansas just didn’t get very good players in the portal. That may sound crazy, as a lot of these guys were hyped when they committed. There’s an echo chamber on that, however: “If Musselman wants them, they must be good!” I don’t know if Muss and staff whiffed on better players, or if they just badly misevaluated, but with one exception, the portal guys haven’t been disappointments relative to their prior seasons:
So Ellis has been a disappointment, but Mark and Battle have actually been better than they were at Houston and Temple last year. And the team is worse. Because players in the 80s aren’t stars. In 2023, Black graded at 99 and Jordan Walsh at 97. In 2022, Notae was at 100 and Williams at 99. In 2021, Moses Moody and Smith were both at 96.
Players are generally stable from year to year, even when transferring. Those who stay in the same place under the same staff typically improve slightly each year, with Year 2 generally being the biggest jump (this is true in football as well: note that all three Heisman QB finalists were in their second year at their school).
So while Arkansas was signing Menifield (75) and Ellis (84) to battle for the point guard spot, Alabama was signing Aaron Estrada (100) and Kansas State was signing Tylor Perry (100). Shall we do a quick check-in? Estrada grades at 94 for Alabama and Perry at 98 for Kansas State. Both are better than any Arkansas player, because of course they are. They were better before Alabama and Kansas State signed them.
All of the available data told us that Arkansas didn’t really get the best players it could have in the portal. That’s why I keep going back to so what was the plan here? Is the staff’s data bad? Or did they get outbid on options they knew were better? I don’t know, and I’m also not sure how to make due with what we ended up with. Again, I expect that effort and will to win will probably increase, which will help, but I’m not sure how much.
Advanced Stats
It’s tough to take too much from the numbers since Arkansas lay down and quit in the second half.
The Effective Possession Ratio (EPR) numbers tell the story of a failure of roster-building, and also a failure of effort. I’m not even sure which one is more prevalent, though “they signed low-effort players” incorporates both ideas. Auburn was +14.2 in EPR, which equates to 10 extra scoring chances over a 70-possession game. Arkansas could have shot significantly better and still would have lost because they can’t force turnovers or get offensive rebounds.
Of course, Arkansas didn’t shoot significantly better, because they take too many midrange jumpers. The Hogs took 31% of their shots from inside the arc but not at the rim, and they shot an ice-cold 11% on them. 11%. That’s 2 for 18, if you’re curious. At what point does a coach tell his players to stop taking a third of his team’s shots from the least-efficient spot on the floor? Arkansas only got 28% of its shots at the rim. Auburn using some zone had something to do with that, but if Arkansas had just turned those 18 midrange jumpers into 3-pointers instead, they would have scored 12 more points and lost 83-63 instead of 83-51. At least that avoids the worst loss in Bud Walton history.
Up Next
Arkansas starts a two-game road trip with a game at Georgia on Wednesday. Early model pick: Dawgs 76, Hogs 70. Yikes.
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