Arkansas’ defense ends Colgate’s upset hopes

INDIANAPOLIS » The night before his team’s NCAA Tournament opener, Arkansas coach Eric Musselman sat in a hotel room and talked with his son about using full-court pressure against Colgate.

The Razorbacks didn’t use their “55” defense until after they’d fallen into a 14-point hole, but once they did, the Raiders had no answer.

Call it “24 Minutes of

Hell.”

Justin Smith had 29 points and 13 rebounds, and Arkansas shut down highscoring Colgate to open the NCAA Tournament with an 85-68 win on Friday.

“We knew we were going to unleash it,” Musselman said. “I didn’t know if it was going to be in the second half or in the first half, when it might be. We talked about playing Justin at the 5 — we didn’t say much to the team about it — and thought it could really speed things up.”

The 14th-seeded Raiders (14-2) had upset pickers out of their seats early in the South Region opener with a slew of 3-pointers and a 16-2 run to go up 14. The third-seeded Razorbacks (23-6) restored some bracket order with a 19-0 run spanning halftime and scored 10 straight points late to pull away.

Arkansas’ defense was the difference.

In danger of becoming the bracket’s first big upset victim, the Razorbacks switched from man defense (5) to full-court man (55) to swarm Colgate.

The Razorbacks, at times, snatched the ball right out of the Raiders’ hands to set up shots in transition, scoring 34 points off Colgate’s 22 turnovers. Arkansas forced five turnovers during the decisive run, holding Colgate without a field goal for more than six minutes to turn a close game into a 13-point lead.

Nelly Cummings led Colgate with 14 points.

“The intensity of their on-ball defense is really something that we’re not used to,” Colgate coach Matt Langel said. “They were trying to not let us run offense.”

Musselman has led a quick turnaround in Fayetteville with the same freewheeling offensive style he had success with during four years at Nevada.

The Razorbacks were on the cusp of an NCAA Tournament berth before last season was shelved by the pandemic and this year have their highest seed since reaching the 1995 national title game.

They may not be Nolan Richardson’s “40 Minutes of Hell,” but they play fast and score a lot — 82.4 points per game, seventh nationally.