Hogs close regular season at Alabama
FAYETTEVILLE -Arkansas will close out the regular season on Saturday at Alabama following an impressive home win over LSU on Wednesday night.
Arkansas (15-15, 6-11) defeated LSU 94-83 on Senior Night so they will enter Saturday’s game with a little momentum. Alabama (20-10, 12-5) on the other hand will hold its Senior Day while having lost two games in a row. The Tide was in position to possibly earn the top seed in the SEC until they lost to Tennessee 81-74 and Florida 10587. The Vols game was in Tuscaloosa. Counting a 117-95 loss at Kentucky, the Tide has lost three of its last four games. Only a 10388 win at Ole Miss on Wednesday, Feb. 28, has provided a positive game recently.
Arkansas’ record hasn’t been what was expected at the beginning of the season when they were nationally ranked, but a win at Alabama would provide plenty of momentum heading into next week’s
SEC Tournament. Eric Musselman talked about that following the LSU game.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a yearly occurrence for us to go play at Alabama,” Musselman said. “So we just go there and we know they’re going to be ready to play. We know they’ll have a great crowd. We know they’re explosive in transition. We know they want to take a lot of 3s and try to get to the rim and take as many layups.
“We know (Mark)
Sears and (Aaron) Estrada throw riffle passes with their left hand when they get in the lane for spit-out 3s. Now we have to try to do everything we can to defend them. (That) will be the biggest key because they do have great spacing and they do share the ball and they will be ready just based on they’ve had some games where they’ve been close and could have won and didn’t, so this is an opportunity for them to gain momentum going into the tournament and it’s a way for us to continue to try to build our confidence going into next Wednesday’s game, as well.”
Sears, a senior guard, is leading the Tide in scoring with 21.1 points per game. He also is averaging 4.1 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.7 steals per game while shooting 44.2% from behind the 3-point line. Estrada, also a senior guard, averages 13.5 points, 5.4 rebounds,
4.4 assists and 1.6 steals each outing. Senior forward Grant Nelson leads Alabama with 5.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game. Nelson is also averaging 11.9 points and 1.7 assists each game.
Jeremiah Davenport had five points, five rebounds and four assists in the win over LSU Wednesday night. He too knows Alabama is a big game.
“I’ll say it means a lot,” Davenport said. “Obviously this is the last game before the conference tournament and this is a great opportunity — for any team. For any team playing a ranked team, it’s a great opportunity, so we know what to do.
We know the focus and we’re going to try to pull it off, for sure.”
Arkansas has won three of its last five games entering Saturday. The win over LSU provided payback for a 21-point loss in Baton Rouge earlier in season.
“Yeah, I mean I think you’re right,” Musselman said of Senior Night. “It’s probably hard to go out there and take pictures smiling if you’re a competitor. So you want to win. I’m happy that the team played well in Bud Walton. We didn’t play well last game. I mentioned the 8.5 minutes that we didn’t play well. We fought. We got down and we scrapped and had a chance to tie it. You look at the five years, this is the one year that we haven’t played up to the way that we would like at home.
“This team has done an incredible job on the road. Although wins might not be there, the competitive nature on the road of late has been great. We’ll see what happens. We’re going to play a team that’s the best offensive team in the country. A team that we know will be ready to play. You never want to walk in and play a team after they’ve lost, especially a team that has a chance to play for a national championship like Alabama does. So we’ve just got to regroup. A lot of guys played a lot of minutes. We’ve got to get them fresh and ready to play an early… here we go again, an opponent that played on Tuesday and we played on Wednesday. And we have a tipoff before you can eat a bagel.”