For the second Saturday in a row, No. 17 Arkansas basketball had a lousy start in a road game and got boatraced.
This time it was No. 21 Georgia doing the damage with a 90-point onslaught. The Bulldogs raced out to an 11-0 start and maintained a double-digit lead for most of the game. The Hogs scored a season-low 32 first-half points, but found some life in the second half. They used a 20-3 run to trim down a 19-point deficit, eventually tying the game at 70 apiece with 5:52 remaining.
But Georgia immediately rattled off a 10-0 run to erase all of Arkansas’ hard work, ending the game on a 20-6 stretch. The Hogs were turning the ball over just 9.6 times per game entering this contest, which ranked 20th nationally and first in the SEC. Against Georgia, however, they coughed the ball up 18 times – seven of those turnovers came in the first 10 minutes of action.
The Bulldogs had four scorers in double figures, led by star guard Jeremiah Wilkinson’s 20 points. You have to dig a little deeper into the box score to locate Georgia’s real most valuable player in this contest, though.
If you didn’t get the memo, big man Somtochukwu Cyril was hosting a block party in Athens this weekend. The 6-foot-11, 260-pounder led the SEC and ranked sixth nationally in blocks entering this game, averaging 2.6 per contest. The Nigerian center outdid himself against the Hogs, though, finishing with 6 points, 5 rebounds and a season-high 7 rejections.
“You can’t just go in when he’s free and try to shoot it over him, and we did,” Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari said postgame. “He’s good at what he does, and if you let him stand around that goal, it’s hard. We were doing some things to try to bring him out and get to the rim without him there … I remember like three times thinking, “Why did you shoot that?”
Calipari knew exactly what he was in for with Cyril, who signed with Kentucky in the Class of 2024. Coach Cal brought Boogie Fland, Billy Richmond III and Karter Knox with him to Arkansas, and Cyril was rumored to follow his head coach, too. In the end, he didn’t tag along and ended up at Georgia.
“I think the biggest thing for him was the timing of everything,” Overtime Elite coach Corey Frazier said. “Once the staff left to go to Arkansas, it kind of put things in perspective for him. ‘You know what, maybe there’s a better place for me’ … The way [Georgia] utilizes their bigs, it just made sense for him. He knew he could get on the court right away.”
Cyril was still getting his feet wet in last year’s clash with Arkansas, finishing with just 5 points, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks in a loss in Fayetteville.
This time around, the strong-armed straggler made Calipari pay.
