As Arkansas’ postseason picture dims, John Calipari talks ‘dud’ at South Carolina
Just when it seemed John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks (17-12, 6-10 Southeastern Conference) were finally beginning to fire on all cylinders, they fell into the quintessential SEC trap house in Columbia, South Carolina and misfired on Saturday with a “dudly” shooting performance in a 72-53 ambush at the hands of the South Carolina Gamecocks (12-17, 2-14 SEC).
After winning five of their past eight games — with all three single-digit losses against top-10 ranked opponents (No. 1 Auburn, No. 2 Alabama and No. 8 Texas A&M), Arkansas may have thought they were in for a reprieve going into Colonial Life Arena in Columbia — and it was evident from the beginning. Starting with an 0-for-17 shooting stretch early in the game, the Razorbacks finished the first half with only 14 points and trailed by 30 plus in the second half.
Afterwards Calipari told the media his undermanned team was due for a let down, and they can only learn from the loss and move on.
Everything John Calipari and the players said after loss to South Carolina
“I told (the players), eight games like we played, you would (be) due for a dud,” Calipari said. “It was a dud. Move on. I said, now what they did to us, they exploited us near the basket, which my guess is every team will try to do now. So we gotta figure that out, but, I said burn the tape, and let’s get ready for Vandy.”
Trailing 32-14 at halftime, Arkansas couldn’t muster 20 points until just over midway in the second half and overall made only 15-of-52 shot attempts (28 percent) from the floor while going 3-of-22 (13 percent) from three point range in the game. Meanwhile South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles and Nick Pringle had their way with Arkansas’ interior defense.
Getting Inside Arkansas
Boyles led all scorers in the game with a career-high 35 points and seven rebounds while Pringle doubled his season scoring average with 18 points and nine boards in the game.
“What bothered me was we played behind (Boyles),” Calipari said. “Why would you do that? We kept saying, but it was gonna take a lot more effort to get around in front of him. So I’ll just stay behind him, and then he’ll muscle me, and he’ll get me to the basket. But, you know, I’ve watched the tape. He’s played well. He’s averaging 20 a game almost.
“And then what he did here, he said, uh-oh. They cannot guard me, and they just throw me the ball. And guess what? Even if we trapped him, we couldn’t guard him. Good player.”
South Carolina coach Lamont Paris said he was happy to see his team finally start to get over the hump with back-to-back home wins and hoping to build some momentum going into the SEC tournament. Paris confirmed Calipari’s suspicions that he saw vulnerability in Arkansas’ interior defense and game planned to exploit it.
“Our first two plays, we specifically were set to throw the ball inside,” said Paris — who despite his team’s struggles this season — led the Gamecocks to a surprise NCAA Tournament appearance in his second year in Columbia a year ago. “And so we were gonna be committed to that in this game. And we actually missed a couple of buckets around the basket, but we got some really good looks. I thought our looks in general in the first half were tremendous. But that was a point of emphasis in this in this game.”
“Just in this game with a couple of matchups, we specifically said we’re not gonna fool around. We’re not gonna finesse it. We’re gonna come right out and just try to throw the ball inside, early and then, try to do that as often as we could. And fortunately, we had some good success with it. We made some good passes and catches, and we made some strong moves around the basket. And, we’re able to get some get some things to go for us that way.”
Stifling Z and DJ
It was South Carolina’s defense however — or Arkansas’ lack shooting, which upstaged Boyles’ career day. With Arkansas likely without it’s top two scorers for the rest of the season, Paris said his game plan was to neutralize Arkansas’ most potent emerging scoring threat in sophomore big man Zvonimir Ivisic.
“We wanted a man on him the entire time,” Paris said. “If you get separation from him, he’s got a quick trigger as a shooter, so it doesn’t take much space at all for him to get a three off. We wanted to have a man on him at all times.
“So in some of his ball screen situations, we started off switching those just so that we’d have a guy. It’d be a smaller guy, but we’d have a guy on him. And he didn’t have space really to operate, freely the way that he likes to, and I thought that impacted it. They have some good sets that they run for him to come up which is what’s different about him compared to most bigs that shoot.”
Paris said he took a similar approach to neutralizing Arkansas’ backcourt players like DJ Wagner and Johnell Davis.
“”Here’s what I tell you right now. I can’t make any trades. I can’t pick up anybody at the wire. This is who it is. So what we’ve done alright (but) how do we make this work? That’s all I’ve been thinking about. That’s what I’ve been doing all season and now we got two games left.””John Calipari
“Same thing was with Wagner early on,” he said. “We thought that that both of those decisions made sense. You get a man on Wagner even if it’s not the ideal matchup. It’s not the ideal matchup, but you got a man on him versus having him look downhill and see that there’s an opportunity for him to attack because he’s really good in that. And it’s the same thing from the perimeter with Big Z. So I thought both of those decisions worked in our favor tonight.”
Arkansas was led in scoring by senior center Jonas Aidoo who came off the bench to record a double double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Freshman wing Karter Knox was the only other Razorback in double figures with a team-highs of 11 points, five assists and two steals.
Wagner had eight points, no assists and four turnovers in the game. Freshman wing Billy Richmond had nine points and senior guard Johnell Davis had seven points and a pair of steals.
“(The Gamecocks) were really aggressive. But I told the guys after, we we’ve been through a gauntlet just like South Carolina,” Calipari said. “If you wanna know what I told (Paris) when I walked down, I said, if you played all home games, you’d be top 10. Because they play really well in this building. They beat Texas the same way they beat us. It was almost carbon copy.”
At the end of the day, Calipari chalked the loss up to his team’s inability to put the ball through the hoop.
“But when you go 0-for-17, you shouldn’t win a game,” he said. “Someone’s got to make a shot. You were 0-for-17, you’re not gonna be in a good game. There’s no reason for me to go crazy. Make a shot. Well, we didn’t. It could have happened (against) one of these other games. It happened at South Carolina. Let’s move on now. Let’s get our feet back under us.”
Roster Deconstruction
That task got all the more difficult with reports coming out that Theiro may be likely lost for the season with a torn meniscus in his knee. That leaves the Razorbacks without their two best players going into the final two games of the regular season.
“You still can look for seven of nine guys, but no. We needed to have more” he said now looking back in retrospect on the decision to go into the season with only nine scholarship players. ” You don’t plan on what happened, but we needed more guys. When we had the guys, we played better but as we got shorter, less guys.
“I’m gonna say it again. It’s not only being injured. You can’t have three or four of your seven play poorly…You just gotta look, but here’s what I tell you right now. I can’t make any trades. I can’t pick up anybody at the wire. This is who it is. So what we’ve done alright (but) how do we make this work? That’s all I’ve been thinking about. That’s what I’ve been doing all season and now we got two games left.”
Last Stand of the Seven
Arkansas next plays at 9 p.m. on Tuesday against the Vanderbilt Commodores, who likely secured a spot in the upcoming NCAA tournament by earning their twentieth win of the season with a 97-93 win over Missouri on Saturday in Nashville. The Razorbacks will close out the SEC regular season by hosting No. 24 Mississippi State next weekend.
Calipari said his seven remaining rotational players will have to rally around each other if they hope to realize their postseason goals.
“We’re undermanned. Adou and Boogie are out. No one wants to hear that, but it makes it so we cannot have three out of our seven play poorly,” he said. “You can’t and win. So everybody’s gotta come in with, ‘I’m gonna be my best version.’
“And if I’m not playing well, you ready for this statement? Do all the easy stuff really hard. Don’t try to do something crazy, a step back three or a goal and cross and lose. No. Whatever the easiest things, defend, rebound, block out, dive on the floor, sprint every chance because I’m not playing well. So I’ll do all that easy stuff really hard.”
