Hogs head south to face Mississippi State
FAYETTEVILLE -Arkansas will hit the road to face Mississippi State on Saturday afternoon with Eric Musselman’s squad trying to get untracked.
Arkansas (12-12, 3-8) is coming off a 92-63 loss to Tennessee Wednesday night in Bud Walton Arena. On the other hand, Mississippi State (16-8, 5-6) is not only home, but hasn’t played since Saturday when they beat Missouri 75-51. Eric Musselman isn’t exactly thrilled with how the SEC set the schedule up this season. He was asked should you play at home if you are set to face a team coming off a bye?
“I don’t want to get fined,” Musselman said. “I just said, to turn around when you have the last game twice, it’s happened to us. And then you play at 11 a.m. in Baton Rouge and then you play a game at… I don’t know what it is, 1 o’clock. Unless you play the game or coach the game, an extra four hours does matter when you have a short turnaround. And I wish we would have played Tuesday night.
“You get the schedule that people give you and it’s not an excuse. We’ve got to go play the game. But looking at the numbers on what’s happened around the league. It’s a hard game and we’ve got to go get ready for the team that’s been prepping for us for a week. So, it is what it is. We had it with Georgia and now this will be our second time doing it.”
Musselman dismissed the notion that he might bring that up at the SEC meetings.
“Yeah, well, they got bigger things to worry about than playing a late game and then an early game,” Musselman said.
Point guard El Ellis also was asked about playing a team with a bye?
“I feel like it’s good for us since we haven’t had a bye,” Ellis said. “We weren’t just practicing. We had a game. I would say we just have to come play for 40 minutes. We can’t play for 20 minutes like we did tonight. We’ve got to play for a full 40. We have to compete the whole game. Mississippi State is a tough place to play, so just got to come out ready to play.”
Arkansas will face a Mississippi State team that is at full strength as senior forward Tolu Smith is set to play his 13th game. Smith, who scored 16 points and pulled down 11 boards against Missouri, has been limited to 12 games due to a foot injury. Smith is averaging 16.8 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game since his return.
Freshman guard Josh Hubbard is averaging
14.8 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.7 assists. Senior forward
Cameron Matthews leads the team 7.1 rebounds and 2.2 steals per game. He is also averaging 9.3 points and 2.9 assists. Senior guard Dashawn Davis averages 6.4 points, 1.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.5 steals.
Junior guard Tramon Mark leads the Razorbacks with 17.3
points and 1.3 steals per outing. Sophomore forward Trevon Brazile still leads the team in rebounds, 6.5, and blocks, 1.3, but isn’t available due a knee injury that has limited him to 19 games.
The tip is set for 1 p.m. and will be televised on ESPNU.