Whew pig sooie. Our two big keys to this game were that Arkansas needed to make 3-pointers and defend the perimeter. They did neither of those things, but they ended up getting just enough to escape Norman with an 83-79 win over struggling Oklahoma.
Darius Acuff had 21 points, nine assists, and zero turnovers to lead the Hogs, who trailed by as many as 13 in the first half before cutting the margin to four by halftime. The second half was back-and-forth, but an and-one layup by Acuff with 21 seconds left put Arkansas ahead for good.
The Razorbacks were 2 of 17 from beyond the arc against a bad 3-point defense. And the Sooners – who are totally reliant on 3-point shooting – hit 10 of 27, meaning that Arkansas’ last three road opponents have all made 10-plus 3-pointers against them. Sixth-year senior Nijel Pack scored 22 points and hit six of 11 from 3.
The home win over LSU was ugly and bad because it came at home, but there’s no such thing as a bad road win in the SEC. Oklahoma isn’t good, but as of Wednesday morning the Sooners are still ranked exactly 75th in the NET, so, for now, that’s a Quad-1 win.
- Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 83, Oklahoma 79
- Matchup Analysis: Arkansas’ 3-point defense must travel in order to beat Oklahoma
- Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 85, LSU 81
Advanced stats
Oklahoma maintained an average lead of 2.2 points. It may seem like more, but their 13-point lead happened quickly and vanished just as quick.
As expected if you read the preview, the Sooners got nothing easy: eight points off turnovers, just three fast break points, and 30 points in the paint. The Hogs didn’t their usual diet of fast break points (or anything in transition, really), but they scored 56 points in the paint.
The Hogs generated more shot volume despite a pitiful effort on the offensive glass. Oklahoma is a poor defensive rebounding team, so Arkansas really should have had more. However, they avoided sloppy turnovers, which helped offset some of that.
In terms of shooting, just look at those numbers inside the arc. The Hogs took 73% of their shots from 2, and they shot 74% in the paint and 63% from midrange. That’s two straight games with a midrange shooting percentage above 60%. That could be notable as the season continues: midrange shots are the least efficient in basketball (and Arkansas has been quite bad at them despite shooting a lot), but because analytics hate them so much for offenses, defenses usually don’t make any kind of effort to prevent them. Basically, if you want to take midrange jumpers, you can, and if you’re going to shoot 60% on them, you should.
The main reason this game was close was 3-point shooting: Oklahoma hit 56% eFG% on high volume, while Arkansas shot only 18%. Allowing 56% isn’t necessarily the end of the world, but Arkansas needs to shoot better away from home.
MVP award goes to Acuff, who was plus-7 in a four-point win and produced a net of six points. This was the first bad game from Meleek Thomas in a while, as he failed to make a 3-pointer.
For Oklahoma, Pack had a huge game, but that was about it. And if you’re wondering, no, Oklahoma did not play a guy named “Jake Hansen” – that would be Kirill Elatontsev, who was not on the Sooner roster when the season started. My data system picks the closest match to each name that appears in the box score and play-by-play, and Hansen, who is apparently a walk-on, is who it picked. I usually do a roster update sometime in January, so I should probably do that before the Hogs (potentially) take on Charles Bediako and Alabama next month.
Other scores
Vanderbilt 80, Kentucky 55. The Wildcats pulled out a tailspin with five straight SEC wins, but now they are right back into one after this start-to-finish thrashing by Vanderbilt, who was playing without Duke Miles. We’ll discuss what’s gone wrong for Kentucky later this week, but injuries to several stars haven’t helped. The Wildcats will likely be very wounded still when they come to Fayetteville on Saturday.
Highlights
Up next
We’ve had it circled on the calendar and it’s finally here: Kentucky comes to town on Saturday. The game is in primetime, at 5:30 on ESPN. The atmosphere at Bud Walton Arena should be electric. Kentucky is wounded, but every Arkansas fan has to know that all the pieces are there for this to end up being exactly like last year, except with the teams reversed. Kentucky is good enough to win, and if they play loose with their backs against the wall, it could get scary. Then again, that would require Mark Pope to show some skill as a coach that we really haven’t seen yet.
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