Arkansas dug itself an early hole and never could quite get out of it against Baylor on Saturday.
After an ugly first half, the No. 16 Razorbacks managed to tie it up at one point and made it a one-possession game a few times down the stretch, but never led in a 72-67 loss to the No. 8 Bears at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
It’s the first official loss of the John Calipari era, as Arkansas (1-1) split its two charity exhibition games before beating Lipscomb in the season opener earlier this week.
The Hall of Fame coach has cautioned fans that his new-look Razorbacks might experience some growing pains early in the season. That was on display in their first real test, but Calipari’s messaging after the game remained the same.
“We’re not in sync yet, where we’ll be, but in the second half, we did some good stuff,” Calipari said. “We gave ourselves a chance.”
For Baylor (1-1), it was quite the bounce back from a 38-point beatdown in its season opener at No. 6 Gonzaga — but one essentially predicted by both coaches leading up to the top-20 neutral-site showdown.
“(Gonzaga coach) Mark Few and I talked and I said, ‘Well, thanks. I appreciate you doing that. So now I’ve got to play them,’” Calipari said. “We knew they were going to be alert. They lost that game and now they’re coming back here, they played good.”
The constant comments from Calipari that his team is still learning how to play together and they’ll be much better by the end of the season can be tough to hear following a tough loss, so take it from Scott Drew.
Another one of the six active coaches with a national championship on his resume, the Baylor basketball coach told reporters that Arkansas has “Final Four potential” and acknowledged what Calipari has been saying since the summer.
“Us and Arkansas are two peas in a pod, meaning you’ve got a lot of talented players, but it’s kind of like back in the day with the Olympics when you’d put all-star teams together and it was a lot harder to win rather than teams that played years together,” Drew said. “I think Arkansas and us just improve each and every day, and we’ll be at our best in February and not right now.”
Here are a few key takeaways from the Arkansas vs Baylor game…
Baylor Baffles Hogs with Zone
After the win over Lipscomb on Wednesday, John Calipari was trying to stress to reporters that his team was still in the learning stage of the season.
“We need that right now,” the legendary coach said about the hard-fought win over the preseason ASUN favorite. “Let’s keep learning — Kansas, TCU, now this. We need a team to play us some zone so we figure it out.”
Calipari didn’t have to wait long to get his wish. The story of Saturday’s game was Baylor’s decision to almost exclusively play a zone defense, which clearly flummoxed the Razorbacks.
Arkansas showed some improvement after halftime, but never looked fully comfortable on offense. It was especially rough in the first half, when the Razorbacks shot a miserable 36.7% (11 of 30) from the floor, routinely settled for 3s (2 of 12) and frequently turned the ball over (8).
“We came out lackadaisical, not knowing they were going to go zone,” freshman Boogie Fland said. “I mean, it was a surprise to us. I feel like we picked it up going into the second half.”
Calipari, on the other hand, said he wasn’t surprised by the Bears going with a zone. While that seems to contradict his star point guard, the long-time coach was probably speaking from a philosophical standpoint. He’s been around long enough that nothing surprises him and he’s played Baylor in the past when it used a zone.
For this game specifically, though, there’s no denying Arkansas wasn’t ready for it. The ESPNU broadcast mentioned the Bears ran the zone for only six possessions against Gonzaga and instead went with a switch-heavy man-to-man look — which the Bulldogs took advantage of on their way to a 101-63 victory.
That was the focus of Arkansas’ game plan.
“We were at shoot around today,” ESPNU play-by-play man John Schriffen said early in the game. “John Calipari was telling his team, ‘Be ready for this Baylor defense that’s going to switch 1 through 5.’ But they’ve come out with something completely different to start this game.”
Afterward, Calipari took full ownership of his team’s struggles against the Baylor zone.
Despite his public desire to for an opponent to do it, zone is admittedly something Arkansas hasn’t worked on much in practice. Part of the reason for that has been the lack of healthy bodies.
With only nine main rotation players, a handful of injuries in the weeks leading up to the season left the Razorbacks severely shorthanded. There was even a stretch when they were down to only five players, making it hard to get stuff installed — an issue that’s amplified when the entire team was pieced together in a matter of months.
“We have our zone stuff in, but we’re trying to get our man stuff in,” Calipari said. “This is a brand-new team. These guys never played together.”
3-Point Struggles Continue
Throughout the first half, and even into the second half, the ESPNU broadcast kept wondering aloud if Baylor might eventually ditch the zone and go back to what it had primarily used against Gonzaga.
That never happened, though, because Arkansas never did anything to force the Bears’ hand.
“The reason Scott (Drew) stayed in it — and that he should have — we look so bad against the zone,” Calipari said. “Why would you get out of it?”
Part of that was because the Razorbacks refused to attack the middle of the zone.
“The ball has got to get inside that zone,” ESPNU color analyst Jimmy Dykes said at one point late in the first half. “Arkansas is not flashing anyone to where the logo normally is right below the free throw line. John Calipari, on the fly, needs to get a bunch new guys in sync on the zone offense.”
That led to settling for a lot of 3s, which brings us to the other reason Baylor never had to change its defense: Arkansas certainly wasn’t going to shoot its way out of it.
The Razorbacks missed their first nine 3-pointers and finished the game 5 of 20 from deep. At 25%, that’s a slight improvement from the Lipscomb game in which they went 4 of 19 (21.1%), but it’s still the fourth straight game — including the two exhibitions — they’ve shot under 30% from beyond the arc.
“I still think my team’s pretty good,” Calipari said. “Gotta make a shot or two. You don’t have to make them all. You just can’t miss them all. We gotta make our share and we got good shooters.”
Johnell Davis, who shot 41.4% from 3-point range at FAU last season, missed all five of his attempts against Baylor and many of them were good looks. He’s now just 4 of 18 (22.2%) in an Arkansas uniform.
The Razorbacks also got three misses from D.J. Wagner, who has missed nine straight 3s since knocking down his first two in the opening minutes of the Kansas exhibition. More concerning than that, though, is that his shot doesn’t look nearly as smooth as it did when he made those first two.
On the positive side, Adou Thiero went 2 of 4 from deep and Boogie Fland — who had been just 3 of 19 — went 3 of 5. That includes a deep 3 with 24 seconds left to make it a one-possession game.
“We’re definitely confident,” Fland said. “We’re not worrying about that so much. We know we can hit 3s. We know we’re a 3-point shooting team. It’s going to fall eventually. It’s really early in the season.”
Hogs Lean on Thiero
Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the season so far has been the play of Adou Thiero.
The Kentucky transfer turned in the best performance of his career Saturday night, leading all scorers with 24 points on a very efficient 10-of-15 shooting performance that included going 2 of 4 from deep. On top of that, he added a team-high 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks and 1 steal in 31 minutes.
The other one didn’t count, but this isn’t the first monster game by Thiero in an Arkansas uniform. He also had 20 points (on 8 of 13 shooting), 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 blocks and 1 steal in the exhibition loss to TCU.
In two seasons with the Wildcats, Thiero reached double-figures just five times and topped out at 16 against Kansas a year ago. He also never made multiple 3s in a game.
“He’s in attack mode now,” Calipari said. “Instead of messing with the ball, he’s in attack mode. Now he can get to where he needs to go. Probably got to get him to do a little stride-stop so if he gets stuck, he can turn and make plays for his teammates. That may be one of the things he can do for us. But he also defended a very physical guy, so he was doing a little bit of everything.”
Thiero is incredibly athletic and has flashed that athleticism several times so far this season, including a couple of times against Baylor.
He notched his two blocks on back-to-back possessions in the first half and jumped high in the air to get the second one. He also got way up when he was fouled hard going to the rim by Baylor freshman phenom V.J. Edgecombe.
In the second half, his hustled led to a thunderous dunk — after which he immediately cramped up and had to go to the bench to get stretched out.
Baylor basketball coach Scott Drew, who said he actually tried recruiting his dad, Almamy, while at Valparaiso, was thoroughly impressed by what he saw from the junior.
“I love that kid,” Drew said. “Coaches love guys that play with a motor and play hard. … Really, really, really, really talented player, and somebody that I’ll cheer for because I love how he plays.”
Fland’s Big Game
It was somewhat overshadowed by the sensational play of Adou Thiero, but Boogie Fland also turned in a solid performance.
Although he wasn’t quite as efficient, going 5 of 13 from the floor, the freshman point guard finished with 17 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds.
According to HogStats, he’s just the fifth UA freshman to notch at least 17 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds in a game during the SEC era (since 1991-92). Courtney Fortson did it four times in 2008-09, Patrick Beverley did it against Texas in 2006, Ronnie Brewer did it against Nicholls State in 2003 and Kareem Reid did it against Ole Miss in 1996.
The difference between those performances and what Fland did? The Bronx, N.Y., native did it while not committing a single turnover — despite being on the bench for all of 59 seconds. The others had at least one.
Arkansas vs Baylor Coming to Bud Walton Arena?
At one point during the ESPNU broadcast, the crew of John Schriffen and Jimmy Dykes dropped a previously unknown nugget on those watching from home.
The Arkansas vs Baylor game in Dallas was not a one-time thing, but rather the start of a home-and-home series between the former Southwest Conference foes.
Despite this year’s game being at a neutral site in Dallas, ESPNU reported that the Bears would travel to Fayetteville for a game next season.
However, Baylor basketball coach Scott Drew played coy when asked about it afterward and never actually confirmed the news.
If the game does happen, it’d be the first time Baylor has ever visited Bud Walton Arena. The Bears haven’t been to Fayetteville since the Razorbacks left the SWC. The six non-conference matchups between the two schools have taken place in Dallas (2008 & 2024), North Little Rock (2009), Indianapolis (2021) and Waco (2023). Those latter two were in the NCAA Tournament and part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge, respectively.
Up Next for Arkansas Basketball
The Razorbacks return to the friendly confines of Bud Walton Arena for their next four games, beginning with Troy at 7 p.m. CT Wednesday.
With a 78-61 win over New Orleans on Saturday, the Trojans improved to 2-0 and check in at No. 117 on KenPom. They were picked to finish third in the Sun Belt this season.
The game will be streamed on SEC Network-Plus.
Other Arkansas Basketball Tidbits
- The announced attendance for Arkansas vs Baylor was 10,207, which is about half of American Airlines Center’s capacity. Based on comments by the ESPNU crew, at least half — if not slightly more — of those fans were supporting the Razorbacks. “I want to thank all the Arkansas fans because they were crazy,” Calipari said. “Half the building was Arkansas people. I’m just disappointed we didn’t win, but I hope they say, ‘They fought, they tried, they’re doing some good things.’”
- A double technical was assessed with 3:31 remaining in the first half, with Baylor’s Jeremy Roach and Arkansas’ Billy Richmond getting T’d up. Things had been getting a bit chippy the few minutes leading up to it and the officials wanted to get things under control.
- Jonas Aidoo continued his return from an undisclosed injury with a slight uptick in playing time, as he got 9 minutes after playing just 7 in the opener. He missed his only shot attempt Saturday and committed a turnover, but did grab a rebound.
- Not having Aidoo available to play a larger role impacted Arkansas’ ability to slow down Baylor’s Norchad Omier. The former Arkansas State and Miami (Fla.) standout had his way with the Razorbacks around the rim and finished with a double-double of 15 points (on 7 of 10 shooting) and 12 rebounds.
Arkansas Basketball Legend Who Almost Got Away
Ronnie Brewer is part of Razorback royalty these days given the role his father, Ron Brewer, played in the first great Hogs team of the modern ear and Ronnie’s own contributions to the program as a player and now part of John Calipari’s staff.
However, thanks to a friendship with fellow Fayetteville native Nick Bradford, he was much, much closer to signing with two blue-blood programs over the Hogs than many fans realize.
Read more here:
Arkansas vs Baylor Highlights
Postgame Press Conference
Arkansas vs Baylor Box Score
***
More coverage of Arkansas basketball and Arkansas vs Baylor from BoAS…
