The famed Eric Musselman in-season turnaround – (which, I would note, didn’t really happen last year) – isn’t going to happen this year. Or if it does, it’s going to be too little, too late.
We’re not even out of January yet and Arkansas’ at-large hopes are basically dead following a 77-64 home loss to South Carolina to drop the Hogs to 1-4 in the SEC. Even a very strong finish – say 10-3 or better – just gets Arkansas back to the bubble.
So what went wrong? We talked about it after the Auburn game, but Arkansas whiffed in the transfer portal this year. They signed guys with some statistical productivity, but most of the signees had major red flags in their advanced stats. Either the staff was unaware of those issues (misevaluation), or they thought they could coach them up (hubris). I don’t know which is the answer.
What happened to position-less basketball?
Muss has had a ton of success with tall guards. The headliners are Mason Jones, Jalen Tate, Moses Moody, Ricky Council, and Anthony Black, but even guys like Jimmy Whitt and Stanley Umude fit that mold. Tall guards allow you to play position-less, as talented guards over 6’5 can defend three, four, or even five spots on the floor. In particular, offensive rebounding and perimeter defense should benefit from tall guards, since they have rebounding advantages against their man and can use their length to close out on shooters. Offensive rebounding and perimeter defense have defined the success of the Musselman era so far.
This year’s team does technically have guards that have height, but there is no advantage to having them. Khalif Battle, who is 6’5, might as well be 5’8, given that he averages just 4.7 rebounds per 40 minutes on the court, including a microscopic 0.1 offensive rebounds per 40 minutes. They could be me on the court and there’s a good chance I would find a way to bumble into an accidental offensive rebound in 40 minutes. Tramon Mark is 6’6 and averages 4.8 total boards and 0.4 offensive. Jeremiah Davenport is 6’7 and averages just 3.4 total rebounds per 40 minutes on the floor. Their length is completely useless on the offensive glass. Another advantage of tall guards should be perimeter defense, but Arkansas’ perimeter defense is horrible.
But here’s the thing: this isn’t a surprise. We knew before the season that Battle, Mark, and Davenport were horrible rebounders for their height, and per our models, Battle, Davenport, and El Ellis were each the worst defender on their team’s starting five. What exactly did Arkansas’ staff expect to go differently?
It’s interesting that when Arkansas hired Musselman, he promised position-less basketball, which is the direction the modern game is taking. Originally, that’s what Arkansas did, but it feels like with each passing year, the Hogs get more and more “positioned”. This team is even less “position-less” than most of Mike Anderson’s teams. Take rebounds: the Hogs have four guys averaging at least nine rebounds per 40: Trevon Brazile, Makhi Mitchell, Jalen Graham, and Chandler Lawson. Those are the forwards. Then there’s a big gap, and everyone else on the team (the guards) are under six. The team that just destroyed Arkansas on the boards, South Carolina, has zero guys over nine boards per 40, but they have only one starter with less than 5.5 and two guards over six. That’s position-less basketball.
Arkansas’ offense is an ugly, isolation-heavy, brutally simple ball screen continuity scheme. It wants to isolate tall guards on shorter defenders and let them create their own shot. Because it isn’t creative with set plays and off-ball movement, its “creators” are left taking a ton of midrange jumpers, and Arkansas tends to do well when those fall (45% against Texas A&M) and poorly when they don’t (23% against South Carolina). The scheme works when you have guys that move well without the ball and elite offensive rebounders. Arkansas has neither this year, and it’s not a surprise, since they didn’t even try to sign anyone who has shown promise at those things.
Defensively, they signed guys that don’t play with effort, and (shocker!) a lot of guys now don’t give much effort on defense. There’s nothing to “fix” here; these guys are just not good. I don’t know why Devo Davis has regressed, but xRAPM never thought he was an elite defender in past years. He denied Mac McClung the ball in 2021 as a true freshman and that built a reputation that has sustained him ever since. He grades as Arkansas’ worst defender now.
Advanced stats
For a while, Arkansas was bad in transition, so they fixed that and now are just bad in halfcourt. South Carolina outscored the Hogs 62-45 in halfcourt and took their sweet time (19.5 seconds per possession) while shredding Arkansas’ defense.
That’s a lot of red for the Hogs. They still take way too many midrange shots and don’t get offensive boards. This game was especially bad because they also didn’t get to the free throw line, which doesn’t happen often. They signed a bunch of guys who can shoot but are streaky but failed to sign any great shooters, so again, I don’t know what they expected to be different.
South Carolina didn’t look amazing on offense, but they got a lot of shots at the rim and shot well from beyond the arc, and that’s all they needed to do. When you aren’t boring in your offensive scheme, you can actually get shots at the rim! Crazy.
Up Next
Arkansas is at Ole Miss on Wednesday night. If you want to look ahead, the good news is that Arkansas can build a whole new roster for next year. Eric Musselman’s press conferences do not suggest he is aware of his own roster-building shortcomings that doomed this season, but he may be keeping what he really knows to himself rather than badmouth his team’s talent to the media.
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