Arkansas must upgrade its non-conference schedule

The Arkansas Razorbacks’ loss to No. 10 ranked Florida on Saturday was disappointing, simply because the Hogs had so many opportunities to pull off the upset.

But Florida is No. 10 for a reason, and those things happen when you play top ranked teams sometimes, even at home.

For me, the loss to Florida doesn’t even compare to the gut-punching let down of losing to Texas A&M on the road on Wednesday.

Just so we’re clear on how we’re looking at this - no one from ESPN or any of the other so-called experts are predicting the Aggies to make the NCAA Tournament, or contend of the SEC championship. Most of them probably aren’t even predicting the Aggies to have a winning conference record at the end of the year.

Almost no one is predicting Arkansas to win the SEC conference championship either, but there are some who at thinking that the Razorbacks could make a run at the NCAA Tournament, however. Most people expect them to be improved in Mike Anderson’s third year as the head coach.

So A&M is absolutely the kind of game that Arkansas has to win on the road, because there are other bigger road challenges (and challenges at home for that matter) coming up.

But as I have written in this space before, Arkansas will never accomplish any of its goals until it learns how to win on the road.

And I mean, learn how to win tough games on the road. Against good teams with winning record. Teams a lot better than Texas A&M.

And really there is only one way I can see how the Hogs can get there. It’s the same way you improve on everything else - do it, and do it, and do it some more, until you get it right.

You want to be a better 3-point shooter? You don’t do it by practicing lay ups. You do it by shooting 3-pointers.

In fact, you might try practicing shooting deep 3-pointers, like NBA range 3-pointers first. Then when you move up to the regular 3-point line, it doesn’t seem quite as hard.

It is absolutely ridiculous for a team that has struggled on the road like Arkansas has not to play a “true” road game until their first conference game of the year. That’s not admitting that there is a problem, and coming up with a plan to do something about it. That’s ignoring or avoiding a problem.

Yes, I know the Razorbacks flew all the way out to Hawaii to play three games against three quality opponents, and that’s great. I certainly think that helped the Razorbacks.

But none of the teams they played in Hawaii were on their own home court, with their fans screaming and making it hard for the visitors to communicate, and giving their home team that extra pep in their defensive step to get down and get after it.

In Hawaii, the Razorbacks’ opponents were in the same situation the Hogs were, and that’s why they call it neutral.

Don’t get me wrong - I get it. I know that when an athletic director or business manager looks at a non-conference schedule, they want to squeeze as many home games out of it as possible, because that means more money in the piggy bank.

But quite honestly, not too many fans were showing up to watch SIU-Edwardsville, Southeastern Louisiana, Savannah State or High Point anyway. Check the attendance numbers in those games if you don’t believe me. There weren’t any sell outs.

In these tough economic times - and while Wall Street might say the economy is getting better it will still take awhile for that to trickle down to the hardworking, middle class fans who buy most of the tickets - people aren’t going to play to come to many games for contests they know are going to be blowouts before the ball is even thrown in the air at center circle.

If people are going to pay for tickets, they want to see a competitive game. A competitive game that the home teams wins, sure, but they still want to see a game, not an exhibition.

The other reason teams play non-conference games is to prepare themselves for conference play, and that is where the Hogs have failed miserably.

In order to get ready to play on the road, you have got to play some quality opponents who are just as big, strong, fast, deep and talented as your team.

And you have to play at least a couple of them on the road.

That way, a teams gets used to playing on the road, when you don’t shoot 3-pointers as well, and you have to run a half-court offense, and you can’t press as much because more foul calls go against you.

So you get used to playing in a place that is more hostile than not just being out of Bud Walton but still in North Little Rock. Not on a neutral floor. On the road.

If Arkansas wants to be able to play teams from what they used to call BCS conferences (what are we going to call them now?), then they have to play teams from BCS, power conferences.

Not teams like SIUEdwardsville, Southeastern Louisiana, Savannah State or High Point.

The Hogs need to get back to playing teams like Oklahoma, Texas, Tulsa and Memphis, like they used to every year.

What about Baylor, or even the nearby Wichita State, who are ranked?

I’m not saying play all of them on the road in one season, but set up a couple of home-and-away deals in the middle of those 13 non-conference games teams are allowed to play nowadays.

I understand that you have to walk before you can crawl, and the program wasn’t on great footing when Mike Anderson took over. I can understand him scheduling some easy wins for a couple of years to get things going. But this is the year that Arkansas is supposed to have enough of Mike Anderson’s kind of players that they can make a run at the NCAA Tournament.

I can also understand scheduling a couple of easy wins for your season opener, and for your first game back after you take over a week off for finals and Christmas break.

That’s where you schedule the Sun Belt or SWAC schools though. Not a team from Division II. If you can’t beat Sun Belt and SWAC schools at home, you’re not going to be very successful anyway.

I’m good with playing SMU and Clemson. Universities that size are recruiting players that are the same caliber of Arkansas. But you need to play a couple of teams like that on the road.

The Hogs could play a couple of “true” road games in their non-conference schedule, and still have 11 games to play a couple of quality opponents at home, one down the road in Central Arkansas, and still have a bunch of built in wins at home.

Worst-case scenario, they might come out of a schedule like that 9-4, or maybe even 8-5. But they would be better prepared for playing conference games on the road.

A lot of people came in expecting some bigger things from the Hogs this year, and right now we’re seeing the same old team that can’t win on road, because unfortunately, they haven’t been prepared to do so.

And winning only home games won’t get it done.

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(Kelly Blair writes from Camden.)