Basketball season began with a bang at Bud Walton Arena on Monday evening, as Arkansas walloped Southern, 109-77.
The Tigers are likely going to be the lowest-rated NET team on the schedule this year, though it’s worth noting they went 15-3 in SWAC play last year, winning the regular season title. Southern and Bethune-Cookman – who took Auburn into overtime in Steven Pearl’s debut – are the co-favorites to win the conference this year.
Arkansas was without Karter Knox, who figures to be a major piece of the puzzle this year. Billy Richmond got the start in his place, and Isaiah Sealy got some extra minutes as well, scoring 10 points in an impressive Razorback debut.
Here are some advanced stats.
No surprises here as Arkansas dominated points in the paint and fast breaks. The Hogs had an average lead of 20.5 points. That’s a new stat this year for us: basically, if you flipped your TV to a random point in the game, Arkansas’ lead was about 20.5 points. Average Lead is very useful for calculating other stats: Adjusted Win Probability, which was 100% for the Hogs in this game, and Game Control, which will be adjusted for opponent quality and measures how dominant your wins and losses actually are.
Everything here looks strong for Arkansas as well. The Hog guards looked excellent at handling the ball (just 11% turnover rate against a 32% assist rate, for a 2.6 assist-to-turnover ratio) and shot well from all distances.
The only concern was that Southern got a bit hot from downtown, finishing at 67% eFG% from beyond the arc. Leaky three-point defense could be a concern against some tougher opponents, obviously. We will keep an eye on that.
Please excuse the plus-minus numbers, they are not accurate (that’s minutes in there as a filler). But Game Score is accurate, and the trio of Trevon Brazile, Meleek Thomas, and Darius Acuff share MVP honors for this game. It was good to see DJ Wagner take a backseat as a scorer but still dish out seven assists. He was asked to try and go get buckets too much last year, but now he has more scoring help.
The only disappointment here was Malique Ewin, who looked a lot less energetic and confident next to someone like Brazile. He ended up with just a 9% usage rate when he really should be an impactful player on the offensive end. He needs to find his role and get his motor up, because the Hogs will need him as an inside scorer against teams with tougher interior defense.
Highlights
Up next
Arkansas is in East Lansing on Saturday for a monster game against Michigan State. The Spartans are coached by Hall of Famer Tom Izzo and coming off an Elite Eight season. They are probably due for a step back this year, but they’re still a top-25 team. Arkansas has five monster non-conference games (Michigan State, Duke, Louisville, Houston, Texas Tech) and would really like to go 3-2 to set themselves up for a high seed. That’ll be tough if they lose this one, although it is the only road game of the bunch.