Hogs’ Musselman pleased with rebounding numbers
FAYETTEVILLE — University of Arkansas guard JD Notae scored 18 points to help the Razorbacks beat the University of Arkansas at Little Rock 93-78 last Saturday, but that wasn’t the stat which caught Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman’s attention.
Asked about Notae scoring nine consecutive points in a 2:55 span to help Arkansas pull away late, Musselman instead brought up the 6-2 senior’s lack of rebounds.
“He didn’t defensive rebound for us,” Musselman said. “He played 28 minutes and had one rebound.”
Notae’s rebound was on the offensive end.
“He did play well for a short stretch,” Musselman said. “I don’t know about the other 25 minutes he was out there. I think he’s capable of more.”
Against UNC-Charlotte on Tuesday night, Notae responded by showing he’s capable of grabbing a lot more rebounds.
Notae led the No. 12 Razorbacks with 23 points, but also had a team-high 10 rebounds — all on the defensive end — in 36 minutes as Arkansas beat the 49ers 86-66 at Bud Walton Arena.
“That’s his best rebounding game since he’s gotten to Arkansas,” Musselman
said on the UA’s postgame radio show.
It was the most rebounds for Notae in 41 games with the Razorbacks, surpassing the nine he had earlier this season in a 76-60 victory over Penn.
Notate’s most rebounds last season, when he averaged 22.5 minutes and played 31 of 32 games off the bench, was six against North Texas and LSU.
Before Notae transferred to Arkansas and redshirted, he played two seasons at Jacksonville (Fla.) University, where he grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds against Stetson as a sophomore and in 60 games had eight or more rebounds 14 times.
“Coach told us that (UNCC) doesn’t get many offensive rebounds,” said Notae, who is averaging 18.7 points per game. “So that was the game plan, to get on the defensive backboard. And a couple of them just fell in my hands.”
Arkansas (9-3) outrebounded the 49ers 41-21 to improve the Razorbacks’ season rebounding margin to +10.0 per game.
That’s good enough to rank third in the Southeastern Conference — behind national leader Kentucky (+19.0) and No. 7 Mississippi State (+12.9) — and 17th in the NCAA statistics.
“JD was saying that he had one board last game, so I knew he was going to come and get — I didn’t know
how many — but I knew he was going to come play and get boards this game,” Arkansas forward Jaylin Williams said.
Williams, a 6-10 sophomore, had a career-high 15 points, eight rebounds, three steals and two assists against UNCC. He’s averaging a team-high 8.7 rebounds.
Au’Diese Toney, a 6-6 senior transfer from Pittsburgh, is averaging 6.8 rebounds per game; Notae 4.8; Stanley Umude, a 6-6 transfer from South Dakota, 4.7; 6-4 sophomore guard Davonte
“Devo” Davis 4.3; and 7-3 sophomore Connor Vanover 3.4 in 11.9 minutes.
“We have four or five guys that are phenomenal rebounders for their positions,” Musselman said.
Even 5-7 senior Chris Lykes, a transfer from Miami, is averaging 1.4 rebounds. He had two rebounds against UNCC and three against both Kansas State and UALR.
Lykes’ career-high of six rebounds came as a freshman in Miami’s 64-62
loss to Loyola-Chicago in the 2018 NCAA Tournament when Porter Moser was the Ramblers’ coach.
Moser, the former UALR coach, is now in his first season at Oklahoma, which plays Arkansas on Saturday at the BOK Center in Tulsa.
The Sooners (7-2) have a +2.6 rebounding margin, but they were outrebounded 43-30 in a 66-62 overtime loss to Butler on Tuesday night at home. Butler had 15 offensive rebounds to five for Oklahoma.
Arkansas had 15 offensive rebounds against UNCC, including 11 in the first half when the Razorbacks took a 41-31 lead.
The 49ers didn’t have an offensive rebound in the first half and finished with four as the Razorbacks outscored them 18-6 on second-chance points.
Arkansas shot 34 of 64 from the field, so the Razorbacks rebounded exactly half of their 30 misses.
“We told our guys, ‘Hey, when a shot goes up, go chase it. Go try to get it,’” Musselman said. “Fifteen offensive rebounds is a good number, because our shooting percentage was pretty good.
“So we got a good portion of our misses back. Then I thought we did a good job converting those misses as well.”
Arkansas has outscored its opponents 98-46 on second-chance points, leads the SEC in defensive rebounding at 81.2% and is sixth in offensive rebounding at 33.5%.
“Rebounding is always one of the main focuses for us,” Williams said.
Musselman’s first Arkansas team in the 2019-20 season sometimes played a five-guard lineup and usually didn’t have a player taller than 6-6 on the court.
Mason Jones, a 6-5 guard, led the Razorbacks in rebounding that season at 5.5 per game and Arkansas finished with a -6.8 rebounding margin to rank last in the SEC and 342nd nationally.
Despite a lack of size, the
Razorbacks finished 20-12 in a season canceled during conference tournaments because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“What I remember about that team two years ago is it was small, but they fronted a lot, so they gave up a lot of rebounds, but they played hard,” said Notae, who redshirted that season. “I kind of think that made up for a lot of it.
“But now we’ve got some bigger guys like J-Will, Connor, Stan, Au’Diese. All of those boys are athletic and can rebound. And me and Devo can rebound, too. And Chris be getting rebounds for how small he is. I don’t know how.”
Musselman said before the 2019-20 season he was worried he wouldn’t get enough sleep because of the team’s rebounding issues.
“I won’t lose any sleep over rebounding right now,” Musselman said. “But there’s always another leak to plug. We’ve still got to get better in a lot of areas.”