Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Blocker makes most of his chance
FAYETTEVILLE — Finally Eric Musselman put the minutes where his mouth is.
Periodically, during his Razorbacks’ 1-6 stumbling SEC start, Musselman said Arkansas reserve point guard Layden Blocker played harder than any Hog and bore promise of increased playing time. Especially so after the freshman from Little Rock scored 14 points in Arkansas’ otherwise horrendous 90-68 loss at Florida.
The next game, Arkansas’ 78-77 victory over Texas A&M at Walton Arena, Blocker logged 17 seconds. Musselman opted to go with experience, senior guards Davonte “Devo” Davis and El Ellis starting with team scoring leader guard Tramon Mark.
However with point guard Ellis’ five turnovers a key in Arkansas losing 63-57 in a hard fought game against Kentucky, and Davis, “stepped away from the team” and appearing increasingly unlikely to return, Musselman started Blocker in Wednesday’s 91-84 victory at Missouri.
“Layden Blocker, great job tonight,” Musselman said on Razorbacks Sports Network postgame radio. “His floor game was phenomenal.”
Blocker, who scored 9 points and grabbed 3 offensive rebounds and played strong defense in 29:25, was aided and abetted by Mark’s 22 points and the 32 off the bench minutes by fellow point guard Keyon Menifield, the sophomore transfer. Menifield scored 16 points with three assists. Some of Menifield’s minutes were concurrent with Blocker’s including Arkansas blowing Mizzou out with a 47-28 first half.
“Point guard play was phenomenal,” Musselman said. “I give it an A-plus.”
Mizzou plays small guards, which enabled the Blocker-Menifield pairing.
“Obviously, when they play Sean East and Nick Honor together, it allowed us to play two smaller guards together,” Musselman said. “There’s often nights where we’re going against 6-6 guards. That changes playing two point guards at the same time, but I thought those two guys tonight played extremely well off each other. I thought they both were extremely unselfish. Defensively they were really good. It created a little more defensive havoc for the opposition. We were able to extend our defense a little bit more, which probably goes in line with those 10 team steals.”
LSU, 11-9, 3-4 in the SEC, and today’s 11 a.m. SEC opponent in Baton Rouge against the 11-10, 2-6 Hogs, start 6-0 Jalen Cook and 6-3 Mike Williams among its three-guard lineup.
So Blocker (6-2, 175) and Menifield (6-1, 150) may have concurrent opportunities today.
Three games ago, the 77-51 loss at Ole Miss, Musselman chastised Makhi Mitchell, Jalen Graham and Chandler Lawson as centers of inattention.
“We did not have a rebound from the center spot,” Musselman said on postgame radio. “Not one defensive rebound.”
He gets them now, particularly from Mitchell, 12 points/13 rebounds vs. Kentucky and 19 points/14 rebounds vs. Mizzou.
Graham and Lawson also contributed more the last two games on both ends of the court.
“I think our three-headed bigs have been unbelievable,” Musselman said postgame Mizzou. “I really do. I think Chandler and Jalen and Khi have been outstanding. Not good, but outstanding.”