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I’d say this is all welcome news!
I don’t know how much you can count on Hardy tomorrow, or going forward. But just seeing him in action again should give us all the feels, after everything that happened to him. The shooting was shocking, and immediately you want to make sure he’s going to live… much less play football. But I’m sure it will be a relief for him to put on the helmet and hop into the action at Arkansas.
Nathan had his own take on how much Hardy will help the run game. And we have no idea what sort of impact his injury will have on his ability once he’s on the field. But everyone should be happy we get to find out!
At Wednesday’s press conference, Harper said she doesn’t “need to see anything special” from Slaughter. The senior delivered anyway, opening her final season with a team-high 25 points on 9-for-12 shooting and 7-for-9 at the line in just 18 minutes. Ten of those points came in the first quarter, in six minutes, as she set the tone with a shoot-first mentality.
Asked about the freshmen, Slaughter sounded like the veteran she is.
“I’m just so proud of them and happy for them,” Slaughter said. “They’ve been super great in practice, just coming to any one of us with questions, and I really just think doing a good job of just learning. The SEC is such a tough league, and so being able to just focus on non-con one game at a time, I think they’re doing a great job of that.”
It’s hard to pick up on much when the game gets away that badly. But it’s nice to have some good vibes early.
My biggest takeaway was that one team played a lot harder than the other. The Tigers didn’t have their full foster of players, but neither did UNLV. But you could see early the Rebels were focused on crashing the glass and being incredibly physical.
Sorry it was brief, a 9pm tip was rough. Real hoops start up on Monday for the women, and on Tuesday for the men.
Bye weeks are necessary but they’re LONG.
If you told me at the beginning of the year that I would be picking a Shane Beamer-coached team to win in Norman I would question your (and my) sanity. But this season has progressed as weirdly as it possibly could and here we are. South Carolina is on a serious heater and it seems like the Gamecocks have finally figured out how to use LaNorris Sellers effectively, while Oklahoma remains clueless on offense.
Not a gambler, but I wouldn’t mind SC softening up OU with them still ahead on the Tigers schedule.
Arkansas ranks toward the bottom of the conference after a rough start that featured blowout losses to Georgia and Texas A&M. But the Razorbacks showed signs of improvement in a hard-fought defeat to a then red-hot Tennessee team and the aforementioned win over the Commodores.
“They’ve got some good players; everybody in this league does. I think they’ve gotten better each week, and I think they’re starting to find their identity a little bit on defense,” left guard Tristan Wilson said, “It’s going to be a great challenge; it’s going to be a great game as always.”
I’m never not nervous about a game. Arkansas has been looking better and more competitive after a disastrous start to the season. Let’s hope they’re not ready for the Tigers.
I think the offense has clicked better and the defense has looked sharper. Granted, we’re looking at a game against Vanderbilt — the worst team in the SEC to this point — as the big result to this point. But I think I would look more at the Tennessee game as a proof of concept than the one in Nashville despite the result, particularly with the Vols knocking off Alabama the following week.
You could say that Tennessee was looking past Arkansas and already looking ahead to Alabama, but I think that oversimplifies things a bit. I think the Razorbacks did a relatively good job of moving the ball against a good Tennessee defense and largely kept the Vols offense in check.
Playing better or just the right combination of opponents? I say don’t overlook them!
Previews are still going! But not for much longer! Colin took a dive into the Mizzou combo forwards, probably their deepest position:
Mark Mitchell – Eligibility concerns have swirled around Mitchell’s offseason. He’s good to suit up at this moment in time, but that may not be the case down the line. Gates is prepared for life without the All-SEC forward, but having him greatly raises this team’s floor.
Mitchell improved in every season of his college career. He averaged 18.3 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists across 33 games last season, shooting 54.7% from the field and 66.9% from the free-throw line on 8.1 attempts per game.
Mark and Toni are going to play a heap of the minutes at the four, I think.
There are very few scenarios where the Florida Gators aren’t great this year. If there are injuries across the board to their top line guys? Ok, that would set them back obviously. That would do any number of teams in. But there are some scenarios were the Gators aren’t as elite as most everyone thinks they will be.
The Gators are going to be really really good. But they’re not unbeatable and I think Mizzou has the roster who can do it again.
In my humble opinion Mizzou’s head man has done well during his time in Columbia. After all, the program had been a bastion of mismanagement for over a decade before his arrival. He was the first coach since Frank Haith – on the strength of Mike Anderson’s players – to make back-to-back NCAA Tournaments. He was the first coach since Norm Stewart to earn multiple tournament seeds better than the 8-seed vs. 9-seed game. The bar was admittedly low, and he’s cleared it with ease. Even despite the horrendous outcome in year two which saw nary a win against SEC competition, the body of his work has been an improvement. Moreover, Gates has positioned the program well for future success with impressive work on the recruiting trail. Those things are important and constitute work well-done.
The article is free to read. I agree with the sentiment here, Gates has done well. This season is a real opportunity to do more than just be solid. But even if he’s solid I think you extend him. Having a known right now, with the focus being on football has value.
The meet brings a heavy contingent of nationally ranked programs to Gans Creek.
The women’s 16-team field features five teams ranked in the top 30, headlined by the No. 4-ranked Florida Gators. On the men’s side, four of the 14 competing squads hold top-30 rankings, including three inside the national top 10. In the SEC preseason coaches’ poll, Mizzou was picked fifth on the women’s side and seventh on the men’s side.
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