Well I have apparently forgotten how to hit a golf ball – so I played my 6 holes at Belmont and came home. And came home to shock as the Razorbacks were up double digits.
The Razorbacks had to fight against foul trouble as Zvonimir Ivisic fouled out with around 12 minutes and Jonas Aidoo and Johnell Davis had 4 fouls each. The Red Storm got the lead all the way down to two, but could not finish the comeback.
Strangely, Big East player of the year RH Luis Jr didn’t play the last 5 minutes as he was 3-17 from the field and so Rick Pitino tried something else. Whatever that was didn’t work as Billy Richmond hit a jumper along the baseline and DJ Wagner made a layup to give the Razorbacks a 6 point lead, and the Red Storm simply had no one on the court who could hit a shot. Arkansas would finish on a 11-4 run lead over those 5 minutes as Luis helplessly watched from the bench.
Of course, the Razorbacks are ruining my narrative. One of the things that I argued is that I don’t like teams with losing conference records making the tournament as an at-large team. And it looked like the SEC was going to prove my point.
- 6-12 Texas lost by 6 in the play-in game to Xavier
- 6-12 Oklahoma got a 9 seed and lost by 8 to Connecticut
- 8-10 Vanderbilt got a 10 seed and lost to St. Mary’s by 3
- 8-10 Georgia got a 9 seed and lost by 21 points to Gonzaga
- 8-10 Mississippi State got an 8 seed and lost to Baylor by 3
So, that left the 8-10 Razorbacks- and for the second game in the tournament, they took a close game with about 5 minutes to play and beat Kansas and St. John’s. Because Arkansas can’t simply let me have this – they have to prove the Lunatic wrong. And to do it, they took out the first top 4 team of the tournament in 2nd seeded St. John’s (and two Hall of Fame coaches in Bill Self and Rick Pitino).
And as the Razorbacks have won 7 of 9 and gotten Boogie Fland back from an injury that kept him out half of the season, they might also get back leading scorer Adou Thiero – who hurt his knee in late February.
The Razorbacks might be one of the most dangerous 10 seeds that I have seen when they get to full health next week. Congrats to Arkansas in continuing to prove the Lunatic wrong.