Richardson has Razorbacks playing his game

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — When Nolan Richardson was a young man and walked home after a football, basketball or baseball practice, he would have to pass through the territory of a couple of gangs.

A friend who grew up with Richardson claims when the gangs saw Richardson coming, they would cross the street to get away from him.

No one wanted any part of Richardson. Not only was Richardson big and strong, but he would pick up a board and hit them upside the head until he had their attention.

Richardson has long since taken pride in how hard his teams play. He calls them street fighters.

"Boxers do it pretty," he says. "We want to do it ugly."

After two weeks of news conferences in which he continuously addressed how he was teaching his youngsters, the Razorbacks passed the first two tests with flying hands and feet.

"All our kids played hard," Richardson said after sending home No. 4 seed Marquette. "I'm just so proud of the young bucks."

No one was going to confuse it with a preliminary bout to last night's Bruno-Tyson heavyweight title fight.

It was a street fight. It was down and dirty. It was ugly. It was a rickety ride, but when the road ended, the next-tolast team invited to the NCAA Tournament was headed for Atlanta and the Sweet 16.

All the credit goes to Richardson.

On paper, it looked like the Razorbacks would be home in time to start spring break last Friday. Penn State and Marquette had better records against common opponents, against other NCAA Tournament teams — Arkansas was 2-7 before the tournament, and one of those victories was over No. 15 seed Northeast Louisiana — and ranked teams. Richardson doesn't play his games on paper.

He takes his street fight to the court.

What he gets his teams to do, they do with enough energy to light up Times Square for a couple days. He has brought this group along slowly, using the press and traps a little here and a little there.

After getting "spanked" by Kentucky in the SEC Tournament, Richardson told his players it was final exam time. He was tearing the wraps off for this single-elimination hoopfest. If anyone but Richardson had been teaching them, they would be the David in the Goliath of the field of 16.

But instead of being underdogs, they are overachieving Hogs. It is called Hawgball, and it is legal hand-to-hand combat. It was a blow to the solar plexus and dunk upside the head to a good Marquette team.

Almost every shot the Golden Eagles took was contested. Almost every bounce of every dribble was contested. Every rebound was contested.

After trailing 33-31 at the half, the Razorbacks outscored the Golden Eagles 34-23 in the second half as the Hogs forced 9 second-half turnovers and allowed the Eagles only 6 second-half field goals.

Arkansas allowed only 15 for the game. It was because of Hawgball that the Golden Eagles shot 26.8 percent from the field. On the other side of the court, the Razorbacks managed only 24 field goals in 77 attempts for 31.2 percent. But the Hogs got 29 points from Hawgball — steals and putbacks.

Marquette was smothered by the wave after wave of suffocating pressure.

Despite replacing 10 players from last year's team that made it to the championship game, and despite losing two players during the season to the NCAA, the Razorbacks are on their way to the Sweet 16 for the fourth consecutive year.

The new crew has arrived. That doesn't mean they are Final Four-bound.

Massachusetts has better guards than Penn State or Marquette and should have fewer problems with Hawgball.

What it does mean is that nine games ago, faced with replacing his leading scorer and rebounder, Richardson took a bunch of tenderfoots under his wing and slowly but surely spoonfed them the history of Arkansas basketball — Hawgball.

Now, they are bona fide street fighters and a legitimate Sweet 16 team, all because of Nolan Richardson.