Arkansas Kentucky – Page 2 – Syndication Server

Photo gallery: Arkansas basketball’s loss to Kentucky was important

Arkansas basketball gave Razorbacks fans something to be proud of against Kentucky.

Saturday was an important night for the Arkansas basketball team.

Minutes before the Razorbacks tipped against No. 6 Kentucky, the team announced that four-year starter Devo Davis had stepped away from the club. About two hours later, after their best effort in weeks, the Hogs fell by just six points, 63-57.

Emotions were high throughout on both the Arkansas bench and among the thousands of a packed house at Bud Walton Arena. Speculation ran rampant about the reasons for Davis’ absence and his team appeared galvanized in a game Musselman said was closer to what he expects from his now .500 bunch.

Kentucky coach John Calipari had nothing but words of praise for Arkansas, saying the tough times were going to be temporary. The Razorbacks need a miracle to make a fourth straight NCAA Tournament, but if with continued games like Saturday’s, the final half of SEC play can end better than it began.

As for what’s to come in the next several days, who knows. But for one night, even a night in which the team lost, Arkansas basketball showed a heart.

Everything Eric Musselman said after Arkansas fell to Kentucky

Eric Musselman was proud of his team’s effort for the first time in weeks, but he also knows his team has serious weaknesses.

Arkansas coach Eric Musselman knows he’s in a tight spot.

The Razorbacks lost for the sixth time in seven SEC games on Saturday, falling to Kentucky, 63-57, leaving the team near the bottom of the conference barrel.

But Arkansas was also better than usual against the sixth-ranked Wildcats. Musselman, who has regularly bemoaned his players’ lack of effort since December, found no ill words in that regard after the game. His team played hard. They just didn’t play well enough.

News came minutes before tip that heart-and-soul leader of the team Devo Davis was stepping away from the club. No other words were given in the press release or by Musselman after the game, but Davis’ teammates appeared galvanized by his absence.

Arkansas outrebounded Kentucky, the Hogs scored more points in the paint and they had more blocked shots. They also had nearly 200 passes, a statistic Musselman points out after most games and a number that was a marked improvement over the last few weeks, as well.

But offensively, the Razorbacks can’t get anything going. Kentucky may have struggled offensively, too, but the Wildcats have weapons that the Hogs simply do not right now.

Here’s what Musselman had to say after the game.

Effort shows, results don’t as Arkansas falls to Kentucky

Arkansas’ heart appeared, but sixth-ranked Kentucky had too much on Saturday.

The Arkansas basketball team played about as well as could be expected for a bottom-of-the-SEC bunch against the No. 6 team in the country.

But the result ended up about how most figured.

Kentucky, the nation’s top-scoring team, struggled offensively, but had enough juice to put away the Razorbacks, 63-57, in front of a packed Bud Walton Arena crowd on Saturday.

A 7-0 run midway through the second half, spurred exclusively by Reed Sheppard and Antonio Reeves, gave Kentucky its first lead, a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, even if it never grew to expected proportions.

Reeves led all scorers with 24 points and Sheppard scored all 14 of his in the second half.

Arkansas’ defense was as good as it has been in SEC play. The Hogs limited Kentucky to about 25 points below its season average and the Wildcats shot just 37% from the floor. Arkansas’ offense, though, never found rhythm.

Makhi Mitchell, he of 13 minutes a game this season, led Arkansas in scoring with 12 points. Tramon Mark and Khalif Battle added 11 apiece, but on 5-of-17 (Mark) and 3-of-10 (Battle) shooting.

The teams’ stats at halftime were eerie. Both shot 9-of-31 from the field. Both were 67% from the free-throw line. Both made two 3-pointers; Kentucky’s on nine attempts and Arkansas’ on 10. The Hogs had five turnovers to Kentucky’s four.

The turnovers ultimately doomed Arkansas. Sheppard punctuated that 7-0 run with a picked-off pass and dunk and Kentucky scored 12 points off the Razorbacks’ 13 giveaways.

Twitter/X reacts to Arkansas guard Devo Davis’ absence from Razorbacks basketball

The best fans wish Davis the best. The other fans are comtempuous of the Arkansas guard. Wrongly.

Arkansas guard Devo Davis stepped away from the team, per a press release sent by the Razorbacks’ sports information department 10 minutes before Saturday’s tip against Kentucky.

The wording of the sentence is active, mind. Officially, the sentence in the release read “Arkansas senior guard Davonte Davis has stepped away from the program.” The way it’s written means that the move was Davis’ not anyone else’s.

Of course in the era of tight-lipped coaches, players and sports information departments, no reason was given. Nor will one be. That, of course, won’t stop people from speculating.

The closest we know is from ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, who called the game on Saturday. Bilas stated Davis as “AWOL,” meaning absent without leave. That means he took time away from the team without permission.

Reasons are irrelevant, really. Davis put in extreme effort in his three-plus seasons with the team and he very well could be back in a matter of days. Or not.

Let’s see how the always sane (read: never sane) folks on Twitter/X are reacting.

Arkansas guard Devo Davis is “away from the program”

No reason was given, nor a timetable provided for a potential return for Arkansas guard Devo Davis, who has stepped away from the team.

Minutes before the Arkansas basketball game against Kentucky on Saturday evening at Bud Walton Arena, the Razorbacks sports information department slid a little email to gathered media.

Arkansas guard Devo Davis “has stepped away from the program,” the press release, which arrived at 4:50 p.m. stated. It stated nothing else. At all.

Davis was in a similar situation in November 2022 last season. Coach Eric Musselman announced that Davis would be away. No reason was given, nor was a timetable provided. That was on November 28. Davis returned two days later and nearly everyone around the program acted like nothing had happened.

Arkansas beat San Jose State by 41 points on December 3 in Davis first game back. It was also the last game the Razorbacks had a healthy Trevon Brazile for the entireity, as well.

Brazile and Davis both returned this year and Arkansas was ranked in the Top 25 in the preseason. But entering Saturday’s game against the Wildcats, Arkansas was 1-5 in SEC play and needed a miracle, practically, to make the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight season.

Davis, a senior from Jacksonville, Arkansas, who has been a starter in all four of his seasons, is averaging 6.3 points and 4 rebounds this season.

Arkansas vs. No. 6 Kentucky: How to watch, stream, listen, key players and more

With College GameDay in Fayetteville, Arkansas looks to end a tough losing skid against a 6th-ranked Kentucky team out for revenge.

ESPN’s College GameDay makes their long-awaited visit to Fayetteville on Saturday morning, but it couldn’t come at a worse time for Arkansas basketball.

The Hogs are in the midst of a two-game skid and have lost five of their first six games to begin SEC play. To make matters worse, all of those losses have come by 10 or more points.

To add injury to insult, Arkansas could be without both leading scorer Tramon Mark (migraines) and Trevon Brazile (knee), who are likely both game-time decisions. Mark didn’t even make the trip to face Ole Miss.

The Razorbacks are basically eliminated from at-large NCAA Tournament and are going to need a minor miracle to go dancing in March. The No. 6 Kentucky Wildcats offer a prime opportunity for [autotag]Eric Musselman[/autotag]’s team to begin an unlikely turnaround.

John Calipari’s Kentucky team enters Saturday’s contest wounded after dropping a home game to South Carolina on Tuesday night.

It should be an interesting atmosphere in Bud Walton Arena and here’s how you can catch all of the action.

ESPN’s power index gives Arkansas a 29% chance to win

ESPN thinks more of Arkansas basketball than the Hogs’ fans on social media do.

Arkansas basketball fans who frequent social media are less optimistic about their favorite team than ESPN, a media outlet those same people claim hate the Razorbacks.

The entity’s college basketball power index is giving Arkansas a 28.5% chance to beat No. 6 Kentucky on Saturday. The Hogs are at Bud Walton Arena and even with the disappointment that has been the 2023-24 season, the place will be packed, what with College GameDay being on-campus that morning, as well.

Arkansas is just 1-5 in SEC play at nearly the halfway mark of the league’s slate. If the pace were to stay, the Razorbacks would be staring at their worst season since 2008-09. Only slightest glimmer still exists that Arkansas can make it four straight when it comes NCAA Tournament bids. And the notion that the Hogs can make a fourth straight Sweet 16 has all but gone out the door.

Kentucky will enter Saturday stinging a bit itself. The Wildcats certainly won’t be No. 6 in the country when the polls are released after the weekend. They were throttled by Kentucky last time out.

But they’re also a team most prognosticators think is a legitimate Top-10 team when it comes to talen and expected finish. A second consecutive letdown is unlikely.

So even if that 29% mark isn’t great, it’s a bit higher than some of the online crowd would make normal folks believe.

Arkansas will be getting an angry Kentucky on Saturday

Kentucky’s loss to South Carolina on Tuesday is bad for Arkansas’ matchup against the Wildcats on Saturday.

South Carolina showed it was a quality team when it came to Fayetteville over the weekend and beat Arkansas from tip to final buzzer.

Then, on Tuesday night, the Gamecocks blasted the No. 8 team in the nation, Kentucky by 17 points. That doesn’t seem good for the Razorbacks basketball team.

Arkansas will host Kentucky in its next home game Saturday. The Hogs have an away game before then, traveling to Ole Miss for a tip Wednesday night. If Arkansas doesn’t get at least one win out of those two games, the NCAA Tournament is gone. Some fans think it should be, anyway, though those words are generally spoken more out of embarrassment than reality.

Kentucky lost in Fayetteville the last time the two teams met there. But that was just last year, when the Razorbacks were an almost completely different team. This year, they’re fighting for their postseason lives and don’t have three NBA Draft picks on the roster.

The Wildcats, meanwhile, were ranked in the Top 10 for a reason. Kentucky won’t be there in four or five days when the next batch of rankings are released, but a team that good, playing angry against a team that already lost – at home, no less – to the team that just beat them?

It could be a blowout in Bud Walton on Saturday.

ESPN bringing College GameDay to Arkansas for Kentucky game

College GameDay is headed to Fayetteville for the first time when Arkansas hosts Kentucky on January 27.

It’s a good thing Kentucky is good, anyway.

ESPN announced Saturday, before Arkansas lost at home to SEC mid-tier team South Carolina by double digits, that College GameDay was headed to Fayetteville on January 27 for the Razorbacks’ game against Kentucky.

The visit will be the first for the television program, which has done college basketball for 20 years. Bud Walton Arena, long considered one of the premier arenas in the sport, will almost certainly be sold out for a game against the Razorbacks’ biggest basketball rival.

The rivalry had re-kindled in the last few seasons, too, after falling for much of the 2000s and late 2010s. Arkansas has won three of its last four against the Wildcats dating back to February 2021.

But the Razorbacks have started SEC play with just a 1-4 record after Saturday’s defeat at the hands of the Gamecocks. Kentucky, meanwhile, entered Saturday as 8th-ranked team in the country.

The Wildcats will play at South Carolina later this week while Arkansas travels to Ole Miss before the red goes against the blue on Saturday.