Work never stops for freshman
FAYETTEVILLE — Most who attended Saturday night’s 121-89 victory for Arkansas over Florida International at Bud Walton Arena wanted to celebrate or, perhaps, soon went to bed, but the star of the game said he was going right back to work.
Arkansas freshman guard Isaiah Joe, out of Fort Smith Northside, implied his next stop would be the team’s practice facility across the street from the the arena. He hit 10 of 13 3-pointers for a career-high 34 points against the Panthers (7-2).
The 34 points matched that of Scotty Thurman for the second-most points scored by an Arkansas freshman. Thurman is
currently an assistant coach for Arkansas’ head coach, Mike Anderson, and was the shooting star for former coach Nolan Richardson’s Sweet Sixteen, national champion and national runner-up teams from
1992-95.
Thurman held the freshman scoring record until center Bobby Portis scored 35 points in a game during the 2013-14 season.
“I’m always putting in extra shooting,” Joe replied to a postgame question about if he had put in extra shooting during the eight days since the Razorbacks’ 78-60 victory over UT-Arlington (3-5) on Nov. 23.
“So, even after tonight, I’m going to go back and get a lot of shots in just so I can maintain. You never want to have a good night then fall off the next game. You want to keep that consistency.”
Anderson noted sophomore star center Daniel Gafford, of El Dorado, spaced the floor for Joe to operate. Gafford opened the game with a dunk for the first two of his
23 points in 23 minutes.
The Hogs (5-1) obviously recognized Joe and Gafford were operating as the team accumulated 26 assists, but they were not scoring alone.
Gafford and sophomore guard Mason Jones each had double-doubles. Gafford had 12 rebounds and four blocked shots to go with his
23 points.
Jones scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. Junior forward Adrio Bailey scored 10 blocks and had four blocks of his own.
“Anytime you’ve got 26 assists in a game of this magnitude, obviously, you say we shared the basketball,” Anderson said. “I thought we did. We found the right guys at the right time. Joe got in one of those zones and our guys did a great job of finding him.”
The Panthers entered the game averaging 96.6 points per game and led the nation in steals.
“I was just fortunate my teammates kept finding me for those open looks and I was able to knock them down,” Joe said.
Sophomore point guard Jalen Harris missed a double-double by a point. He finished with nine points and 10 assists to one turnover while directing the game at breakneck speed for 26 minutes.
“Jalen, what he does is he works on finding people,” Gafford said. “He rewards big men for running and he finds people that are hot as was the case with Isaiah.
“He has crazy court vision. He finds open people and he makes crazy plays. That’s basically what he came here for was to come make plays like that.”
“Like Dan said, his (Harris’) IQ and his court vision - just unbelievable,” Joe said. “I think he’s one of the best at what he does. So, being able to reward us like me and Dan and anybody else who’s going really good, it’s his game.”
The game could also provide a boost for 6-7 freshman forward Jordan Phillips, whose progress was impeded in October by a knee injury. He underwent surgery for a torn meniscus, missed the first two games and looked out of sorts in the first two games Anderson worked him into the rotation.
Phillips was 0-for-7 from the field until Saturday when he hit 2 of 6 shots for four points. He also grabbed two rebounds and took a charge in nine minutes.
“I think it was more about confidence,” Anderson said of Phillips’ performance. “It ain’t about the buckets, it’s how he got them.
“He got one on a fast break and got an offensive rebound and put it back in. The more time he gets on the floor the more comfortable he’ll get. His deal is just getting caught up with the speed of the game.”
It is imperative that Phillips catch up, Anderson said.
“I thought it was big for him, because we’re going to need him,” Anderson said. “A big guard like that that can handle the basketball, he brought the ball up against their pressure defense and did some good things for us.”