FAYETTEVILLE — Even by normal cupcake standards, Maryland-Eastern Shore ran into a buzz saw when it faced Arkansas on Monday night.
After letting the last few mid-majors hang around longer than expected, the No. 19 Razorbacks seemingly took out their frustrations on the lowly Hawks. They annihilated the MEAC program 109-35 inside Bud Walton Arena.
When the two head coaches met in front of the scorer’s table after the game, UA radio play-by-play man Chuck Barrett read the lips of Maryland-Eastern Shore basketball coach Cleo Hill Jr. as he shook hands with John Calipari.
You couldn’t do anything about it, he told the Hall of Famer, acknowledging his team was no match for Arkansas.
The 74-point margin is tied for the third-largest in UA history, equaling an 81-7 win over the Ozark Athletic Club nearly a century ago (1925-26). Arkansas’ two largest wins were by 82 and 80 points over two other HBCUs — Bethune-Cookman in 1991 and Mississippi Valley State in 2020, respectively.
It was expected to be a blowout, with BetSaracen tabbing the Razorbacks as 35.5-point favorites and KenPom setting the line at 30, but they blew both of those projections out of the water.
They raced out to a 45-point halftime lead and — unlike against Lipscomb, Troy, Pacific and Little Rock — never let Maryland-Eastern Shore to even remotely get back into the game.
“That’s been a point of emphasis for us,” Arkansas assistant Chin Coleman said. “We feel like we’ve had leads in pretty much all of our games except for one — 14-, 16-, 18-point leads — and then we took our foot off the gas uncharacteristically offensively and then we kind of had some game slippage on the defensive side. So that’s something we focused on our the past few days.”
While all the points will garner more attention, a major key to Arkansas dismantling the Hawks as thoroughly as it did was its defense.
The Razorbacks forced a shot clock violation on Maryland-Eastern Shore’s first possession and it was tough sledding the rest of the night.
That was the first of 19 turnovers that led to 31 points. When the Hawks did manage to get a shot off, it was almost always heavily contested, resulting in them shooting just 23.0% from the field. That includes a miserable 4 of 26 (15.4%) from beyond the arc, which is well below their season average of 36.3%.
“Defensively, we’re one of the best teams in the country and we want to continue to hang our hats on” that, Coleman said. “And a lot of stuff that we do defensively, it doesn’t matter who we play, because it’s our scheme. It’s our schematics and it works. As long as we’re in the right spots and we’re doing what we teach, it’ll work against anyone.”
Here are a few other takeaways from the Arkansas vs Maryland-Eastern Shore blowout…
Slump-Busting Night
There’s not much you can take away from a massacre the magnitude of what unfolded inside Bud Walton Arena, but Arkansas basketball fans have to be most excited by two players finally breaking out with big performances.
Freshman Karter Knox led all scorers with 21 points on 8 of 14 shooting, while heralded transfer Johnell Davis poured in 16 and knocked down 4 of 7 attempts from 3-point range.
“Karter has been living in the gym, too,” Chin Coleman said. “I would say that he and Nelly (Davis) are probably neck-and-neck in terms of guys that spend the most time in the gym on their games.”
It was the first time Knox has looked like the McDonald’s All-American he was coming out of high school. Up until Monday, it has been a disappointing freshman season for the 6-foot-6 wing.
Through the first five games of the year, the Florida native had tallied a grand total of 13 points in 77 minutes – a concerning stat for a player known as a scorer. He was also just 1 of 15 from beyond the arc.
Knox actually air balled his first 3, but still ended up knocking down 3 of 8 attempts on his way to 21 points.
“It felt good to get going,” Knox said. “I’ve been putting in the work in the gym. Teammates kept believing in me. They knew it was going to fall (and) tonight was the night.”
Davis, on the other hand, had at least shown glimpses of why he was considered by some as the No. 1 player in the transfer portal this offseason.
Despite working his way back from a wrist injury that kept him out of practice right up until the Kansas exhibition, Davis came into the Maryland-Eastern Shore game averaging 8.0 points and scored 15 in the opener against Lipscomb.
However, he was coming off an ugly 2-point, 1-of-5 showing against Little Rock and was shooting only 21.1% (4 of 19) from deep on the season – well below the 41.4% he shot at FAU last season.
“He’s going to eventually make shots, just depends on when that time comes,” Coleman said. “We saw him the other day make 40 in a row. It was just a matter of time. The only thing in between him and making shots is air and opportunity. He had an opportunity tonight and he made them.”
Both of those players giving the Razorbacks what they did Monday night was likely the difference between beating Maryland-Eastern Shore by 74 and beating them by 47, which was Illinois’ margin of victory on Saturday.
They’ll also probably need them to play at a similar level in the Thanksgiving Day showdown with the Illini in Kansas City, much less on a potential postseason run.
Looking Ahead to Arkansas vs Illinois
Speaking of that game, which is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT Thursday on CBS, both teams will be coming off massive blowouts.
While the Razorbacks were busy destroying Maryland-Eastern Shore by 74, Illinois dispatched Little Rock 92-34 in Champaign, Ill. – a 58-point margin.
Of course, Arkansas also played the Trojans on Friday and the Fighting Illini hosted the Hawks on Saturday. The latter of those was a 47-point beatdown, but John Calipari’s squad struggled to put away their in-state foe. The Razorbacks eventually pulled away for a 12-point victory in relatively close game that went much longer than they would have liked.
To spare you the extra math, Illinois won the two games by a combined 105 points, compared to Arkansas winning them by just 86. That 19-point difference really doesn’t mean much, though, given how little the transitive property means in college sports.
That will be especially true in the Arkansas vs Illinois game because both sides have a mole of sorts who could provide some inside knowledge on the other team.
For the Razorbacks, that’s assistant coach Chin Coleman. Before following Calipari to Fayetteville from Lexington, where he had been on Kentucky’s staff for three years, the veteran assistant worked at Illinois under current head coach Brad Underwood.
“You may not believe this, but I worked for Brad Underwood for four years, so I kind of know all his tricks,” Coleman said.
At the same time, Illinois has Orlando Antigua on its staff. He was an assistant for Calipari first at Memphis and then for two stints at Kentucky. On top of that, Razorback Zvonimir Ivisic’s twin Tomislav suits up for the Illini.
Ultimately, the insider knowledge both on the court and on the sideline may come out as a wash on Thanksgiving.
Other Arkansas Basketball Tidbits
- Trevon Brazile returned to the court after missing the last two games with an ankle injury, but finished with only 2 points in 12 minutes. However, it was a loud 2 points, as he got up high to throw down an alley-oop dunk.
- Jonas Aidoo missed his third straight game with an undisclosed injury. He hasn’t played since the first half of the Troy game.
- The Razorbacks dominated every aspect of the game, out-scoring the Hawks 31-0 in points off turnovers, 46-20 in the paint, 39-18 in bench points, 18-5 in fastbreak points and 15-8 in second-chance points.
- For the first time during the regular season, Arkansas used players outside of its main nine-man rotation. Casmir Chavis was first off the bench among that group and played 6 minutes, while Ayden Kelly, Melo Sanchez and Kareem Watkins each got 2 minutes.
Arkansas vs Maryland-Eastern Shore Highlights
Postgame Interviews
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