Energy, effort and enthusiasm are the three “E’s” that [autotag]Eric Musselman[/autotag] has preached since arriving in Fayetteville. He wants his teams to personify those three words when they’re on the floor.
Unfortunately, those qualities have been absent from this [autotag]Arkansas basketball[/autotag] team, and were nowhere to be found in their 77-64 loss to South Carolina on Saturday afternoon.
The Razorbacks never led at all and were completely outclassed by the Gamecocks in all phases of the game for most of Saturday’s contest. There was no energy, no effort, and certainly no enthusiasm to be found.
With the home loss to South Carolina, Arkansas basketball just saw their NCAA Tournament hopes go up in flames. Most bracketologists have the Hogs eliminated from at-large consideration. That means they’re going to need a Cinderella-esque run through the SEC Tournament to even make it into March Madness.
So, what exactly went wrong on Saturday? Much of the same things that have plagued this team all year long. Let’s go behind the box score to look at Arkansas’ loss to the Gamecocks.