Arkansas returns home to face struggling Vanderbilt
FAYETTEVILLE — After Arkansas cooled off one of the nation’s hottest basketball teams, the Razorbacks will see if they can keep Vanderbilt in cold storage.
Arkansas (13-8, 4-4 Southeastern Conference) won, 90-89, at LSU (17-4, 7-1) on Saturday to end the Tigers’ 10-game winning streak and hand them their first SEC loss.
The Razorbacks now turn their attention to Vanderbilt (9-12, 0-8), which brings a nine-game losing streak into tonight’s 8 p.m. matchup at Bud Walton Arena. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network (Resort Channel 79).
Vanderbilt has its longest losing streak in 16 years — since also dropping nine in a row during the
2002-03 season — and has yet to win in 2019.
If Arkansas wins tonight, the Commodores will have their longest losing streak since the 1984-85 season, when they lost 11 in a row.
The 11-game losing streak is the second longest ever for Vanderbilt. The longest is a 14-game streak over parts of the 1934-35 and 193536 seasons.
The Commodores’ last victory was on New Year’s Eve when they beat UNC-Asheville (3-20, 1-8 Big South), 90-59. Despite Vanderbilt’s struggles, Arkansas’ players said they will not overlook the Commodores after winning at LSU.
“We take no team lightly in the SEC, regardless of their record,” Razorbacks sophomore forward Gabe Osabuohien said. “Any team can be beaten on any given night.
“We’ve got to come out and play our game, and if we do that then we should like the outcome.”
In Arkansas’ two games against LSU this season, the visiting team won each time, with the Tigers taking home a 94-88 overtime victory at Bud Walton on Jan. 12.
Ole Miss (14-7, 4-4) and Mississippi State (16-5, 4-4) each won on the other’s home court this season. Other SEC road upsets include Texas A&M (8-12, 1-7) winning at Alabama (13-8, 4-4) and South Carolina (11-10, 6-2) winning at Florida
(12-9, 4-4).
“We see it as this is the SEC, so every team comes to play,” Arkansas freshman guard Keyshawn Embery-Simpson said. “You have to be ready to play each and every game.
“I mean, of course we did what we should have done the last game, so we can’t just have a pat on the back. We have to come ready to play every single game.”
Arkansas started 6-1 this season — including a 73-72 victory over Indiana (13-9, 4-7 Big 10) — and then lost back-to-back games in Bud Walton to Western Kentucky
(13-10, 6-4 Conference USA) and Georgia Tech (11-11, 3-6 Atlantic Coast Conference).
After opening SEC play with a 73-71 victory at Texas A&M, the Razorbacks lost their next two conference games at home to Florida and LSU. Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson said it will be up to his players to have the same sense of urgency tonight as they did at LSU.
“A lot of it is going to be within those guys, learning from the previous experience,” Anderson said. “We had a six-game winning streak, and I thought the pat on the back kind of set them back a little bit.
“We came off a road win at A&M to begin the (SEC) season. I thought we came home (against Florida), and we didn’t play well. We didn’t play well at all — and it cost us. I think these guys now are grasping what we’re trying to do and just taking it one game at a time.”
Vanderbilt came into the season with high expectations after signing the first two McDonald’s High School All-Americans in program history in 6-2 point guard Darius Garland and 6-10 Simisola Shittu. The Commodores won their first four games, including an 82-78 victory at USC (13-9, 6-3 Pac-12).
Then, Garland suffered a season-ending left knee injury two minutes into the fifth game against Kent State (16-5, 5-3 Mid-American Conference), and the Golden Flashes won, 77-75, to start what has become a 5-12 stretch for Vanderbilt.