June 19, 2013

Mississippi State 82, Arkansas 80

January 14, 2010 by

Marshawn Powell / Jarvis Varnado (AP Photo Jim Lytle)

ESPN.com: Mississippi State 82, Arkansas 80

Jarvis Varnado had 17 points, 12 rebounds and 10 blocks for his second triple-double, and Mississippi State held on to beat Arkansas 82-80 on Thursday night.

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Filed Under: Arkansas Razorbacks, Basketball, Recap Tagged With:
  • http://www.fayettevilleflyer.com sg

    I didn’t have a chance to watch the game, but congrats to the Hogs for making it close. Some questions and observations by looking at the box score:

    * Fortson shot it 26 times!?! And only made 9? And didn’t shoot ONE free-throw? The ONLY person I’m comfortable with shooting it that many times is Rotnei (who had an off night, apparently).

    * Can we have Welsh not shoot anymore?

    * Powell continues to be a beast and Washington continues to underwhelm.

    * Being out-rebounded is becoming expected.

    * For the RazorBlogger peeps, did you count how many times we ran an offense tonight? This is the most troubling item in my head. Watching a team like Kansas versus Arkansas, where there are maybe 10+ passes in a half-court set, it makes me wonder if Pelphrey can coach an offense. And if he IS, then why aren’t the players doing that? And if they AREN’T doing it, why do we think Pel is in control?

    Please, discuss.

    • http://www.razorbloggers.net/ TipsterHog

      Seth…I didn’t get a chance to see the game tonight either (only listened). But you’ve hit on a hot button issue with us on how the Hogs “run offense.” Since I didn’t see it, I’ll let the other RazorBloggers give their opinion on tonight’s offensive performance.

      Totally agree on Fortson…there’s no way anyone can justify a player on this team — any player — taking 26 shots in a game. Especially a player that’s only played one game before tonight.

      And you can’t give up 51 points in the first half to the Bulldogs (or anyone else in the SEC) and expect to win the game.

      But having said all of that…they still had a chance (several chances in fact) to take control of the game at the end.

      Can this team ever fix any of its problems and actually win a tough conference game? We’ll see.

    • http://www.razorbloggers.net/ HogBlogger

      sg – I think you captured the game pretty well just from the box score. Some good comments from others below as well.

      My thoughts from watching the game, and others prior.

      We have short guys. They had tall guys. This will be the case often.

      To say Washington ‘continues to underwhelm’ greatly understates the fact. Add to that he loves to drive the lane with limited success and is the absolute converse of Bill Russel most of the time when it comes to rebounding and you have a complete view of him as a player.

      Yes, there were attempts at an offense at times. Spreading the floor a bit in the second half and pounding it into the post a few times was a positive. Overall, however, not much of an organized approach to offense going on.

      Which is one of the reasons Fortson ended up with so many shots. He and Washington specialize in poor shot-making decisions.

      Lack of rebounding, poor defense and wasted possessions abound with this team. Their only real hope is getting the opponent to play as disorganized as the Hogs. The last third of the game last night, that happened.

  • Mike in Magnolia

    The first thing I read where the stats and that was the most glaring thing i saw. I’m sorry but that should never happen. I know they keep a shot chart on the bench he could have been stopped after he had shot 15 shots. His job is to get the ball in the hands of Clark. Clark sht only 9 times and shooter needs a rythem and now way Clark can get in a rythem with CF shoting 26 times. I am out of country and didnt get to liten or watch but the stats told me all I needed to know on how they lost and why.

  • soupdhog

    I saw the game; the stat sheet doesn’t tell the whole story. About 20 of those shots came from Fortson’s penetration drives, and guys, he was getting mauled down there. He got hammered on more than half of those shots and they still almost went in. Pelphrey and Fortson have to realize they won’t get those calls on the road. It seemed our initial strategy was for Fortson to penetrate and get some of their bigs in foul trouble.

    Pelphrey made an adjustment in the second half as they worked the ball more to our bigs and got us back in the game. I saw that as a positive adjustment, but should have been recognized earlier in the first half before we got ourselves deep in a hole.

    As far as Clarke goes, I thought Miss St defense did the best job all year making sure he didn’t touch the ball. They sold out the 3 pt shot at the expense of exposing the middle. Their interior defense was Varnado hanging out there swatting shots while the other 4 protected the perimiter. When our guys beat Vernardo, we were able to score.

    I thought it was a great game – that showed a lot of positives:

    - we came back from 19 points down to almost win it..on the road

    - our defense held up well in the second half; we didn’t run out of gas

    - Pelphrey made some offensive adjustments to feed Powell and Washington (finally). Those guys domintated Vernado and other Miss St bigs in the second half.

    We still need to work on turnovers, there were too many of those when we had a chance to get within 2-3 points at the 5 minute mark. Made some great defensive stops then threw the ball away.

    I look at this as our second game of the season. Miss St is one of the top SEC teams this year, and we held our own. Lots of upside if we can correct a few things.

    • OwassoHog

      Overall, I’d agree. We didn’t quit and puleed it close. This loss is much easier to take than the 2 where we didn’t defend and lost the game at the last second on easy shots.

      • Swineherd

        I agree with Soup and Owasso. I think you’re being too hard on Fortson, in this case.

        We fell behind by 19 points early, after which stretch State was shooting 90% from the floor and Arkansas was colder than last week. Uneffing believable. Somebody had to do something, and Fortson brought energy and motion to the offense.

        The stats don’t tell how many of the 10 blocks by Jarvis Varnado, the human swat machine, were of Fortson’s shots, nor how many of his misses were rebounded and put back by Powell and Washington because Varnado was focused on Fortson, nor how many were rebounded and recycled by the offense. A missed shot is not always a turnover. Good things can happen when you shoot; nothing happens when you don’t. Passing is highly overrated as a tactic in half-court, IMO. The more passes you make, the greater chance one of ‘em will get picked off or mishandled, and you don’t even get a poor shot opportunity. A poor shot is better than no shot.

        Everybody knows Clarke is a great shooter, so opponents always put their best perimeter defender on him. Clarke doesn’t have the quickness to take many guys off the dribble. Pelphrey (and Clarke) haven’t figured out how to make defenses pay for

        the attention they pay to Clarke. Clarke needs to learn some new moves. Being of the non-jumping persuasion can be a liability, especially when you’re short, too.

        Washington was 50% from 3-point range. You’ll take that everytime. Conventional wisdom says you don’t want big guys to shoot the three. Bird and Laimbeer et al never got the memo. On my team everybody shoots the three or they carry water. Shooting is about confidence. On my team (all-star) when a guy passes up an open shot I bench him till he regains his mojo.

  • T-towner

    I posted after the Texas game that I am encouraged. Nothing last night changes that.

  • Swineherd

    Oh, yeah, the REFS: Like Soup said, Fortson was “getting mauled” inside, and no fouls called. Part of his job was to try to draw fouls on Varnado by going inside.

    I know, the hometeam gets the calls. But that was ridiculous. At one point Rick Shaeffer got more disgusted than I have ever heard hime (or pretty close) when he announced during a time-out that a State asst. coach was standing with his arm around the shoulders of the official and they were chatting and smiling away. RS called it “unprofessional” a number of times and suggested Pelphrey send a picture of it to the SEC office.

    I know we had Ref-gate back in the fall with football, but, I tell ya, basketball officiating is worse than in football. I would like to see a statistical analysis of SEC games, comparing the number of fouls called against visitors vs homes. I know the Hogs get those benefits too, at home, but that doesn’t make it right. If anything, the visiting team should get the benefit of the doubt with the calls. If the MSU game had been called straight the Hogs would have won.

  • GonzoHog

    I hate to put any loss on the heads of the refs, unless your talking about calls that are so obvious I could have called it better myself.(ala Arkansas vs. Florida in Gainsville)

    OU could have made the same claim about the basketbal officiating in Fayetteville last season, in which they probably did, but I do agree with the statement about the Miss. St. assistant and the game official being unprofessional while in the middle of a timeout. Acting as if your buddies, while at the same time attempting to call a fair game, doesn’t look good on those guys at all.

    I think we win today if M. Washington can get control of his silly foul-prone mistakes and S. Welsh doesn’t commit silly turnovers.

    We need those guys to play smart basketball. ‘Nough said.