FAYETTEVILLE - Coming off back-to-back road losses to Connecticut and Oklahoma, Arkansas is hopeful for a home remedy.
The Razorbacks will host Southeastern Louisiana at 2 p.m. Saturday in the first of seven consecutive games in Bud Walton Arena.
While the competition has been tougher away from Fayetteville, Arkansas (5-3) has looked like a different team inside its home arena this season than it has outside. All five of the Razorbacks’ wins came at home, while all of its losses came away.
“I think this is a time we can really start honing in on some things with our basketball team,” Anderson said. “Maybe find those guys are going to be that core group. We’re still trying to find out the roles they going to fit in so I can hopefully define the roles.
“This time here – with the games we have and having the opportunity to play at home – we can keep continuing to develop this team.”
VIDEO: Mike Anderson – Southeastern Louisiana Preview
The first-year coach has repeatedly attributed his team’s inconsistency to youth, noting young teams often play better in environments to which they are accustomed. At home, Anderson said, Arkansas is confident.
“Confidence is so important in the game of basketball, especially with a young basketball team,” Anderson said. “You don’t get confidence in getting beat. You get confidence in winning.”
Making field goals also builds confidence and that is something Arkansas struggled to do in its two-game losing streak on the road. The Razorbacks hit only 32.6 percent of their field goal attempts at UConn and Oklahoma, but are shooting better than 48 percent at home.
Arkansas’ players spent too much time dribbling in its losses, Anderson said, and not enough time looking for shots.
“When you start dribbling it disrupts the rhythm offensively for our basketball team,” Anderson said. “If you notice our assist totals went down. When our assist totals are up that means we’re having great ball movement.
“I thought in the Oklahoma game we became almost a half-court team.”
With semester final examinations ending at the university this week, Arkansas’ players will be able to concentrate solely on basketball during the home-stand.
“I think right now we’re just ready to play somebody to get that taste out of our mouth,” Anderson said. “We’ve had two road games, two tough places to go and play. To have an opportunity to play at home in front of our fans, our guys are ready to play.
“This is the time of year you want to get better. In your nonconference, you’ve got to stress upon trying to get better each and every game. The last two outings, there are some things we didn’t do well. There are some things we did do well. But we want to see if we can continue to try to improve and put those things together.”
You can follow Matt Jones on Twitter @NWAMatt.
I don’t think home or away has anything to do with there loses
It’s the teams that they are playing.
they are small and young. coach anderson is building. he will get it done.
I myself think theses kids played a hell of a game on the road in U-Conn, with it being their first road game, and many of thems 1st road game at the college level against atop 10 program. They stayed in reach the whole time and just never got over the hump when they would cut the score, which I say the refs called the game extremely tight on the hogs. I live in NY and watch a lot of Big East Ball too, and they always play physical with no touch fouls called like in that game at crucial times. These kids will become warriors man, I seen it in that game. They where just flat at Oaklahoma, hell it happens to the best of teams. WPS!
I agree…playing at home or away didn’t result in wins or losses so far. The only good team we’ve played at home was Oakland (don’t be suprised by their name), they’ve played some really good teams close. Our toughest games were UCONN and OU (OU isn’t that good) and we lost both. I think we played pretty good against UCONN but looked pretty bad against OU.
But let’s be honest, this is what we should expect this year now that Powell is gone. We essentially have no inside presence on offense (Abron too slow, and Mickelson too timid) and our veterans (Nobles, Scott, Wade) just really aren’t that good on offense…Nobles has the best potential, but I only see it every once and awhile.
I’ll say it again, we will lose some games we should win and we will win some games we shouldn’t. We have young talent and next year we will be a great team. Can’t wait to see Qualls wear Razorback Red…got a really good feeling about this kid!
OU’s Fritzgerald had a monster game, best of his career. He had family down for the game and played like it. When Anderson tried to take him out the game this Pledger kid just stepped up.
We cannot finish on the inside, and we are too timid to shoot all of the free looks. It may because of confidence, but we take too long getting off the shots if we are not running and then we end up forcing a brick.
That is all coaching so it will take time. I like our players they fight and do not give up.
Important games coming to pad the W/L record, Hogs will need minimum 8-8 in Conference and a Tourney win to get to 20 and a NCAA bid
If we can land jarnell stokes this Christmas, it will really help
us this year but not as much as next year. Powell, Michelson, abron, and stokes would be a championship lineup of big men. Not to mention our own all-American in the making with THE BJ YOUNG.
We really need more people at the games though. Or just make our student section bigger because were the only ones ever doing anything or even going to the games it seems. Distance could be a problem but there are plenty of fans in NWA. either way, when we kill it next year on a national level, people will probably show up.
WPS!!
Excellent piece of research.
Did he really say Baylor had excellent safeties?