Big Dance features cruel tune
It is both the beauty and the tragedy of the NCAA Tournament that it leaves only one team celebrating come April.
After a year vowing to amend for last year’s exit in the second round when they had the North Carolina Tar Heels on the ropes, the Arkansas Razorbacks (23-12) found themselves knocked out in the first round, 79-62, by the Butler Bulldogs (21-13) on Friday in Detroit.
It certainly was not what coach Mike Anderson’s seventh-seeded Razorbacks envisioned, but he and his Hogs certainly do not despair alone.
If you think the Hogs are stunned, think of No. 4 seeds Arizona (27-8) and Wichita State (25-8) eliminated in the first round by 13-seeds Buffalo
(27-8) and Marshall (25-10). And then think of the unthinkable, 31-2 Virginia, not just a No. 1 seed but the No.1 top seed of the tournament’s top seeds, routed, 74-54, in Friday’s first round by the unheard-of 16th-seeded University of Maryland-Baltimore County (25-10).
The solace the Cavaliers should take in their great season of winning the prestigious Atlantic Coast Conference and its ACC Tournament now gets historically overlooked for becoming the first top-seed Goliath slain by the last-seed David.
So, yes, Arkansas, it could be worse.
Nonetheless there will be a sting of opportunity lost for a team that began the season with six scholarship seniors and ended it with second-year junior college transfers Jaylen Barford and Daryl Macon among the nation’s most heralded guard tandems. Its two four-year seniors both played key roles.
Arkansas will graduate starting guard Anton Beard, an alum of North Little Rock High School, and Madison native Trey Thompson, a 6-9 forward out of Forrest City High School.
It was a team of high resiliency, but also high inconsistency. Both traits manifested against Butler’s Bulldogs.
The woefully slow start that Arkansas experienced trailing Tennessee (26-8), 4829, at halftime during its 8466 Southeastern Conference Tournament loss to the Volunteers in St. Louis worsened in Detroit.
Butler scored 21 of the game’s first 23 points.
Yet, from that 21-2 deficit, the resilient Razorbacks stormed back to lead, 29-27, with 3:48 left in the half before a 9-2 Bulldogs run put Butler up 36-31 at intermission.
Arkansas never recovered in the second half from the Butler spurt that closed the first.
Some of Arkansas’ pressure defense game plan worked. The Razorbacks committed half as many turnovers, seven versus Butler’s 14, but failed to score off turnovers. Both teams scored nine points off of turnovers.
Rebounding, often Arkansas’ Achilles heel, sealed the Hogs’ fate in Detroit. Butler outboarded Arkansas, 45-25. Couple that with the Razorbacks’ too many empty opportunities off the possessions they stole, and no wonder they lost by 17 to a tournament-tough Butler team that made last season’s Sweet 16. The Bulldogs netted 51 points from senior forward Kelan Martin, 27, and sophomore guard Kamar Baldwin, 24.
On any given day, Arkansas’ Barford, Macon and freshman center Daniel Gafford, of El Dorado, do to Butler what the Bulldogs did to Arkansas.
But, in the one and done NCAA Tournament, the only day given is the game you’ve got.
Once that day is done it’s all about building for the next one, a painstaking process for Anderson and the Razorbacks with the seniors gone and Gafford pondering whether to turn pro now or return for what presumably would be a one-year encore en route to an NBA lottery pick.