Fayette Villains

Arkansas bounced back from the Kentucky loss with a 20-point road win against Mississippi State to get to 7-3 in the SEC, including 3-1 in their “easy” six-game middle stretch of conference play.

The goal of 5-1 is still in reach, but the Hogs will have to win their fourth true road game of the season, including their third in a row. We are still waiting to see if Karter Knox and DJ Wagner are back after missing the MSU game with injuries.

SEC race update

Over halfway through SEC play, here’s where we stand in the SEC standings:

Florida-Kentucky is the big matchup on Saturday. The winner takes control of first place in the SEC. There are eight teams in the running for the regular season title, so let’s look quickly at their biggest remaining games.

Florida. The Gators are in the best position because they probably have the best team and they are currently in first place, so they need the fewest results to go their way. However, their remaining schedule is quite tough: two games against Kentucky, home against Arkansas, and road games against Texas and Georgia. At least two more losses seems likely, but that still puts them at 14-4 which is probably enough for the 1-seed.

Kentucky. The Wildcats have a half-game on both Arkansas and Texas A&M and obviously own the tiebreaker with the Hogs, but their remaining schedule is extremely difficult: two games with Florida, trips to Auburn and Texas A&M, and home against Vanderbilt. If they cannot sweep Florida it’s hard to see how they can win the conference, but getting to 13-5 and securing the 2-seed is very doable. However, with that schedule, they could easily plummet to fourth or fifth.

Arkansas. The Hogs own tiebreakers with Vanderbilt and Tennessee and get Texas A&M at home, so getting the 3-seed is very doable assuming they win all remaining home games. Road trips to Florida, Alabama, and Missouri could get dicey, however. The Hogs may need to win at least one of those.

Texas A&M. The Aggies have lost two straight to fall into a tie for third, and they still have some tough games left. They have to travel to Arkansas and Vanderbilt, and they host Texas and Kentucky. It’s not the most difficult remaining schedule, but their tiebreaker situation is perilous. They could end up anywhere from the 2-seed to the 6-seed depending on how they finish with Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and Kentucky.

Alabama. Although jumbled in a four-way tie for fifth place, Alabama has the easiest remaining schedule and is primed to make a big move. The Tide own the tiebreaker over Kentucky and get Arkansas, their toughest remaining opponent, at home. They also have to travel to Knoxville and Athens, but other than that, the remaining schedule mostly features the conference’s bottom-feeders. If Tennessee is their only remaining loss – very possible – they could end up with the 2-seed. However, they could also end up losing tiebreakers to the Vols and Vanderbilt and end up with only a 5- or 6-seed even with a strong finish.

Vanderbilt. The Commodores thought they had fixed things after a three-game losing streak derailed a 16-0 start. However, that loss to Oklahoma was devastating. Their remaining schedule is insane: two games against Tennessee, road games against Kentucky, Missouri, and Auburn, plus home games against Texas A&M and Georgia. They’re going to get plenty of cracks at the SEC’s best (outside of Florida and Arkansas), but they’ll have to pull some upsets to have a shot at a top-4 seed.

Tennessee. The Vols’ four SEC losses are against the conference’s top three teams (Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky twice), so getting a top-2 seed is very unlikely. But sneaking into that fourth seed is possible with a navigable schedule. The Vols get Vanderbilt twice and Alabama at home. Winning their home games and taking care of business against Mississippi State and South Carolina on the road might be enough to snag that four-seed with a 12-6 record.

Missouri. The Tigers are the opposite of the Vols: they own tiebreakers against the top two teams (Kentucky and Florida), so they could play their way into a top-2 seed if everything breaks their way. Unfortunately for them, their remaining schedule is very tough: two games with Arkansas, a road game against Texas A&M, and home games against Texas, Vanderbilt, and Tennessee. Holding serve at home might be enough to snag a four-seed depending on how it all shakes out, but like Vanderbilt, they’ll probably end up having to pull an upset or two.

Assuming no major upsets, here’s a guess at the most likely SEC top-10 finish with seeding:

Florida (14-4)
Alabama (13-5)
Kentucky (12-6)
Arkansas (12-6)
Tennessee (12-6)
Texas A&M (12-6)
Missouri (11-7)
Vanderbilt (9-9)
Georgia (9-9)
Auburn (9-9)

Two caveats: I didn’t do the math to see whether this works (I just took a stab at remaining game guesses), and there absolutely will be upsets. But it’s a start. My guess at 11-16 would probably be Texas, then Ole Miss, and then the other four (South Carolina, Mississippi State, LSU, Oklahoma) in a jumbled mess at the bottom. At least two of those bottom four will likely be looking at offseason coaching changes.

You can see from this that if Arkansas loses a game they shouldn’t, they risk falling from fourth all the way to seventh or eighth. That goes for everyone else, too, but there’s little margin for error in a close conference race.

That starts with Tuesday’s trip to Baton Rouge.

Meet the Tigers

Matt McMahon is trying. He’s just 58-62 (16-48 SEC) at LSU with zero NCAA Tournament bids, but his teams generally play hard and have good metrics. The wins just haven’t been there. Even now, the ESPN Bubble Watch isn’t quite ready to stick in a fork in the Tigers yet despite a very flimsy resume.

Non-conference wins over DePaul, Boston College, and SMU don’t do much: the Mustangs are a bubble-in team, but DePaul and BC are terrible. And the Tigers were pasted by Texas Tech in a 24-point loss. It’s been a similar story in conference, with a 2-8 SEC record that includes losses to South Carolina and Mississippi State.

Still, unlike State, LSU mostly dominated its buy games in non-conference play, and the Tigers have not really been embarrassed in SEC play yet (other than an awful start to the first SC game, although they ended up losing by only 10). They gave Arkansas a very good game in Fayetteville.

Model pick: Arkansas 88, LSU 84. Similar to what we saw in the first matchup: the Tigers can score, and Arkansas isn’t a good enough defensive team to pull away from decent offensive squads.

Personnel

The rest of this preview is going to be much shorter than usual, since we’ve already met LSU once this year.

If you remember from the first matchup, LSU has five solid starters – the top five names in the chart above – and then the quality of play falls off significantly. All five of those starters scored in double figures in the first matchup, and small forward Pablo Tamba, the low-usage guy with great metrics, had a breakout game with 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Tigers after we named him as a guy to watch. He’s a guy to watch again, especially if Knox is out or limited by injury. Tamba rebounds well and presents a 3-point threat. He grades as LSU’s best player at both ends of the floor.

The forward combo of Marquel Sutton and Michael Nwoko is also primed to give the Razorbacks problems again. Nwoko had 16 points and five rebounds and was +1 in the first matchup, while Sutton had 11 points and was +5. Arkansas does not do well against forwards who can handle the ball due to deficiencies by the forwards in defending the paint. Both are net-negative defenders, but they can score.

The status of Dedan Thomas is worth watching. The point guard has been LSU’s leading scorer (15.3 points per game) when he plays and he grades as excellent at both ends. However, he was injured in December and has only played three SEC games, including the first Arkansas game. He played the next game for LSU after that (the Mississippi State loss), and has not played since. McMahon says he’s “day-to-day”, so keep an eye Tuesday morning for his status. Without him, LSU is significantly worse as a team. They’ll mostly roll with Rashad King or Jalen Reece at point guard, both of whom are major downgrades on offense. LSU has had to emphasize off-ball movement and screens, which is what you do when you don’t have a true point guard.

With Thomas out, the Tigers are leaning even more heavily on shooting guard Max Mackinnon, who scored 26 points in the loss to Georgia. His usage and assist rate has spiked as LSU has relied on more point-guard-by-committee. Shooting guards haven’t caused a major problem for the Razorbacks this year, and while Mackinnon had 14 points in the first meeting, he wasn’t a huge factor.

Overall, this roster isn’t overly talented, but it is a bad matchup for the Hogs, hence the troubles in the first game. LSU has dynamic forwards that can punish bad paint defenses. Defensively, they are awful, but they at least offer some shot-blocking threats. Nick Pringle seemed to get things going against a very bad Mississippi State attack, and I’m curious to see if Arkansas uses the three-forward lineup we briefly saw against Mississippi State, especially if Knox is still injured or out. This is one of the few remaining games where it might be effective.

When Arkansas has the rock

Arkansas got off to a slow offensive start in the first game – what else is new – which is why the Hogs were only able to get to 85 points against a very bad defense. They’ll want to start better on the road.

Several red flags here. LSU’s defense is decent at preventing paint points (70th), which is concerning, but the biggest issue here is that LSU is decent at preventing transition possessions (93rd). That’s been a problem all season: Arkansas can dominate teams that allow a lot of transition opportunities, like Mississippi State. Kentucky is another team that generally prevents transition possessions, and they completely shut the Hogs out in transition. The Hogs only got 15 transition chances in the first LSU matchup (22%, below their season average of 27%).

The Tigers are competitive in defending the paint, but that’s about all they do well. They allow a very high volume of shots by not forcing turnovers and being subpar at defensive rebounding. They foul too much, and they’ve been blitzed from beyond the arc. Their low assist rate (47%, 50th) indicates a general vulnerability to driving guards. Remember that Darius Acuff had 31 points in the first matchup, so he could end up with another monster game.

Arkansas had fewer offensive rebounds and free throw attempts than LSU in the first game when the numbers suggest they should have won both of those stats. Those could go to toughness and physicality, so that might be something to watch this time. Again, I do wonder if a bigger lineup might overwhelm LSU.

When LSU has the rock

This is a potentially dangerous LSU offense that has only been held under 70 points four times all season.

The Tigers score on a high percentage of their possessions and attack the paint, generating 55.3 paint points per 100 possessions, 13th-most in the nation. They don’t play as fast as they’d probably like to, but they can be dangerous in transition.

Offensively, the Tigers do just about everything well except hit jump shots. They get into the paint, finish well, draw fouls, and crash the offensive boards. Physicality is required to keep them from continually creating and cashing in opportunities around the rim. Arkansas’ paint shooting defense is a major team weakness (265th), but the Hogs have to figure something out or this game could easily end up as a loss.

Keys to the game

Make LSU play from the perimeter. Whether it’s a big lineup, or a big game from Pringle, or something else, the Hogs have to keep LSU on the perimeter and not around the rim. The Hogs can live with a jump shot game, but if this turns into a slog where Nwoko and Sutton are getting a lot of work, this could end up being a dicey game.

Be disciplined around the rim. Arkansas really diced Mississippi State’s paint defense up with good off-ball movement, especially going toward the rim. LSU is going to be even more vulnerable to that. If Arkansas finishes well around the rim (and they did a pretty good job in the first matchup), they should win. Throw in more offensive rebounds than in the first matchup, and they will be in really good shape.

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