Tag: Stanley Umude

Arkansas’ rally falls short at Texas A&M as Hogs fall to 0-3 in SEC

Arkansas wilted during an 18-0 Aggies second-half run and the Razorbacks began SEC play 0-3.

Arkansas dug itself a hole it could not overcome.

An 18-0 Texas A&M run in the early minutes of the second half sent the Razorbacks to a third straight loss in SEC play and their fifth loss in their last six games with a 86-81 win in College Station on Saturday afternoon.

The Aggies (13-2, 2-0) dominated the game the way Arkansas would have preferred: balance, speed and defense. Five different Aggies players scored in double figures. Texas A&M had 28 points off 18 Arkansas turnovers, as well.

JD Notae did what he could for the Razorbacks (10-5, 0-3), scoring a season-high 33 points on 11 of 23 shooting, including a 5-for-8 game from the 3-point line. He was joined in double figures by four other Arkansas players, but everyone not named Notae, Jaylin Williams (10 points on 5 of 8 shooting) and Stanley Umude (10 points on 4 of 8 shooting) shot a combined 25%.

Arkansas made it interesting in the last three minutes, pulling back within a point after trailing by as many as 17 midway through the second half. But Quenton Jackson made a 3-pointer to put A&M ahead by four points with 33 seconds left and the Hogs ran out of time.

The Razorbacks last started 0-3 in SEC Play in 2008-09. They finished that year 2-14 in-conference.

Arkansas returns to Bud Walton Arena on Wednesday to play Missouri.

Trouble in paradise: Arkansas falls to Vandy at Bud Walton Arena

Arkansas missed two shots in the final seconds and fell to Vanderbilt, 75-74.

Myles Stute blocked Stanley Umude’s potential go-ahead lay-up with two seconds left and JD Notae’s last-ditch 3-pointer rimmed off as Vanderbilt escaped Bud Walton Arena with a 75-74 win over Arkansas on Tuesday night.

Umude had his best game in an Arkansas uniform, scoring 28 points on 11 of 20 shooting. As he drove down the left side with seconds remaining, he had a clean look until Stute, Vanderbilt’s center, slid over to help and blocked the ball out of bounds.

The ensuing inbounds pass came from the corner and Notae had a contested look from the wing just before the buzzer sounded.

Only five Razorbacks players joined him in scoring as coach Eric Musselman tightened his rotations against the Commodores.

Notae returned from illness after missing the team’s SEC opener against Mississippi State last week and had 16 points in 37 minutes. Au’Diese Toney (20 points), Jaylin Williams (six points) and Jaxson Robinson (three points) joined him cracking 30-plus minutes. The Arkansas player with the next most minutes was Chris Lykes, who made a single free throw in 10 minutes.

Arkansas loss starts the team 0-2 in league play. It’s the first time the Razorbacks have started the SEC with losses in their first two games since 2013-14.

Scottie Pippen Jr. led Vanderbilt with 22 points.

Why Arkansas basketball can still make the NCAA Tournament

Arkansas basketball has the talent and the coaching to turn its season around and make the Big Dance.

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December was a cruel, cold month for the Arkansas basketball team. Spring, however, to steal and modify a phrase, is coming.

ESPN’s Bracketology dropped the Razorbacks from the predicted teams to make the NCAA Tournament with its latest update on Friday. And per the network’s Basketball Power Index, Arkansas faces long odds to return. Of 18 games the Hogs have remaining, 10 come against teams ranked inside the Top 30. Seven are against teams inside the Top 20.

By no means, though, is Arkansas out of it.

Coach Eric Musselman is known for taking lemons and turning them into lemonade. And it’s not as though Arkansas’ team in 2021-22 is actually that much of a lemon. They started the year 9-0 and were ranked inside the Top 10. Weaknesses were evident through those nine victories and Musselman even said as much. But what allowed nine straight wins was talent.

Arkansas has the talent. Even if it has yet to gel, more than half the season remains.

Guard JD Notae is still the second leading scorer in the SEC. Stanley Umude, Au’Diese Toney and Chris Lykes are still players who averaged double figures at their previous schools of South Dakota, Pittsburgh and Miami (FL). Devo Davis is still the player who broke out in last year’s NCAA Tournament. Jaylin Williams is still one of the best point-forwards in the sport.

And Musselman is still a coach who led a mish-mash collection of Razorbacks to the Elite Eight in 2020-21.

The margin for error is slim. Arkansas cannot afford to drop games against teams it is better than. Starting Tuesday when Vanderbilt visits Bud Walton Arena, the Razorbacks have to win. They don’t have to make a statement in that win, necessarily, but they must come out on top. The road is too tough to hoe going forward.

Follow that with a road victory at Texas A&M, an Aggies team, by the way, nipping at the heels of the Hogs in the power index. Beat a bad Missouri team back in Fayetteville after that and suddenly the Razorbacks are 3-1 in the SEC with a chance to visit Baton Rouge and knock off an LSU team that’s all but a lock for the Dance.

That sort of stretch is all that’s required to get the Hogs back into the hunt. Sure, it ignores the last month of the season and all the difficulty it will bring. But winning begets winning and if Arkansas can string together some in the early weeks of the new year, then things are far from over.

Turnovers doom out-of-sync Arkansas in loss to Mississippi State

Short-handed Razorbacks falter in second half, drop SEC opener to Mississippi State.

Lacking its best player and one of its top big men, Arkansas was in no position to open SEC play with a win.

Mississippi State took advantage of a short-handed Razorbacks squad and won both teams’ SEC openers, 81-68, on Wednesday evening in Starkville.

Arkansas (10-3, 0-1 in SEC) announced minutes before the game that guard JD Notae, the team’s leading scorer (second in the SEC) would miss the game because of an undisclosed illness. The team also announced Kamani Johnson, who had his best game of the season last time out against Elon, was indefinitely suspended from the team. No reason was given.

The Razorbacks looked disheveled without them. Mississippi State (10-3, 1-0) won nearly every meaningful statistic and took away Arkansas’ strength of getting to the inside on offense. Without Notae, Arkansas forced the issue, committing 17 turnovers, which led to 25 Mississippi State points.

Arkansas entered the game allowing opponents to grab about seven offensive rebounds a game, the best mark in the SEC. But without Johnson on the interior, the Bulldogs racked up 15 offensive boards. Tolu Smith was especially dominant on the interior, scoring 18 points and getting six rebounds.

Shakeel Moore, Iverson Molinar and D.J. Jeffries joined Smith in double figures with 16, 15 and 10 points, respectively.

Stanley Umude led Arkansas in scoring with 19. Devo Davis added 15 points and Chris Lykes had 10.

Arkansas returns to Bud Walton Arena to start SEC play at home on Tuesday against Vanderbilt.

Central Arkansas zero match for the Razorbacks in Arkansas’ blowout win

Arkansas had its biggest blowout win over the year Wednesday night, beating Central Arkansas 97-60.

Finally.

After a few easy-but-not-too-easy wins at Bud Walton Arena this season, No. 9 Arkansas achieved its first true blowout of the season, beating Central Arkansas 97-60 on Wednesday night.

Stanley Umude scored 17 points off the bench to lead four Razorbacks in double figures. Devo Davis netted a season-high 16 points, Au’Diese Toney scored 14 of his 16 in the second half and JD Notae had 10 points, giving him double-figures scoring in each of Arkansas’ first seven games.

UCA troubled the Razorbacks a bit for a half behind the strength of 7-of-10 shooting from 3-point range. But 14 second-half turnovers, and 25 in the game, led to 29 Arkansas points off those miscues and an 11-3 run to start the second and a 13-0 run later in the half all but finished things.

Fayetteville High graduate Collin Cooper led the Bears with 13 points and former Razorbacks forward Darious Hall added another 12.

Arkansas next plays at home on Saturday against another team from the Natural State: Little Rock. Tip is set for 3 p.m.

Arkansas takes big lead, holds off Penn late

Arkansas showed itself stronger and more athletic than Penn on Sunday afternoon.

Arkansas built a lead of 22 points in the second half, but a bout of sloppiness helped Penn pull within 10 before the Razorbacks tightened things in a 76-60 win on Sunday afternoon.

JD Notae scored 28 points and Stanley Umude added 19 more to help the No. 13 Razorbacks (6-0) build the large lead. But during a four-minute stretch in the second half, Arkansas missed four shots, two free throws and committed three turnovers, allowing the Quakers back into the game.

Arkansas’ size and athleticism ultimately proved the difference as the Hogs outrebounded Penn, 44-28, and outscored them on the fast break by seven.

Umude, a transfer from South Dakota, had his best game at Arkansas, adding another seven rebounds. He, Notae and Toney, who was ejected, combined to shoot 25 of 41 from the field. As team, Arkansas shot 3 for 17 from 3-point range.

The Razorbacks will return to Bud Walton Arena on Wednesday when they host Central Arkansas. Tip is at 7 p.m.

Huge run helps Arkansas blow past Gardner-Webb

A massive run to end the first half lifted Arkansas past Gardner-Webb on Saturday, 86-69.

That was more like it.

No. 16 Arkansas handled a non-power conference team visiting Bud Walton Arena the way they’re used to on Saturday afternoon, beating Gardner-Webb, 86-69.

A 27-5 run over the last seven minutes of the first half turned a six-point deficit into a 16-point lead at the break. Most of the run came from the play of Connor Vanover, JD Notae and Devo Davis.

Vanover had his best career game as an Arkansas player, scoring 19 points and grabbing seven rebounds in 17 minutes. Notae followed his game-high 30 points in the season opener against Mercer with 18 against the Runnin’ Bulldogs. Davis, who played point guard the whole game after shifting among three spots against Mercer, bounced back from a five-turnover game in the opener, to finish with 10 points, six assists and three rebounds.

All three are holdovers from last year’s Arkansas team that has only four players in its 11-man rotation back from last year. Everyone else is a transfer into the program in their first year with the Razorbacks. Of that bunch, Stanley Umude led with nine points.

Gardner-Webb simply couldn’t handle Arkansas’ length. Vanover, at 7-foot-3, was an intimidating presence inside. But even Arkansas’ perimeter players’ long arms hassled the visitors. The Hogs forced 15 Runnin’ Bulldogs turnovers and scored 15 points off them.

Arkansas is off until Wednesday at Bud Walton Arena when the Razorbacks host Northern Iowa.

Predicting Arkansas basketball’s season, game-by-game: Part I

Razorbacks Wire editor E. Wayne thinks Arkansas basketball will finish this season nearly the same as it finished last.

A truncated 2020-2021 basketball season ended with Arkansas in its best spot in 25 years and it has lead to optimism that hasn’t been witnessed in Fayetteville in that length of time, too.

The Razorbacks were tabbed to finish third in the SEC by the league’s assorted media this year. A year ago, they finished second. No significant drop-off is expected.

But coach Eric Musselman’s team is also breaking in at least six players who weren’t part of the playing roster last year into the rotation. Chemistry takes time and Arkansas’ two exhibition games showed things haven’t completely coalesced yet.

No one suggests the formula is wrong and Arkansas will have an opportunity in November and December to find the balance. The Razorbacks don’t have the same difficulty of a nonconference schedule as they had last year. The front half of the SEC slate isn’t difficult, by league standards, either.

Things will come to a head in February and March, when seven of the team’s final 10 games will be played against teams figured to finish in the top-half of the SEC, which also means those teams will be vying for an NCAA Tournament and/or seeding.

So how is the season going to play out? Here’s Razorbacks Wire editor E. Wayne’s game-by-game predictions.

Five more 2021 NBA draft prospects to reportedly work out with Celtics Wednesday

Boston is paying a lot of attention to the back end of the 2021 NBA draft.

It seems the Boston Celtics have a lot of interest in players projected to fall mid-way through the second round of the 2021 NBA draft to undrafted with a strong slate of fringe candidates reportedly slated to work out with the team by Forbes Sports’ Chris Grenham.

While it is still unclear if this reflects an over-arching draft strategy for the Celtics given the event is slated to take place on July 29 — over a month in the future — it’s clear Boston believes it will have some potential reasons to be interviewing these players once that day finally arrives. In addition to a number of such prospects we have already written about, five more prospects are reported to be hosted for pre-draft workouts with Boston today.

Let’s take a quick look at the field.