Pigs rolling during the recent run

FAYETTEVILLE – A finger on the wrist of basketball fans from Arkansas Razorback – seen through the real-time lenses of social media platforms – around 8:30 pm on January 20 may have looked like anger, frustration and panic on a grand scale.

The University of Arkansas was behind Auburn at the Walton Arena by a score of 37-18, after a three-point shot by Sharife Cooper at 4:17 the end of the first half. This was an Auburn team that the Razorbacks had dispatched 97-85 on the road at their conference opening three weeks earlier, although with Cooper unavailable.

With 19 points lost by 16 points at LSU and 31 in Alabama in his two previous games, the Razorbacks had come to a crossroads.

Losing to young Tigers at home and dropping to 2-5 in the SEC game with a second home loss after a 13-point setback to Missouri at Walton Arena. Or fight the bigger deficit and start finding answers to a slow attack that was struggling to score in the hoop and a defense that was likely to give up many clean looks from three points and offensive rebounds.

Second-year coach Eric Musselman said on Thursday that the Walton Arena crowd played an important role in lighting a fire under his team.

“They were energetic,” he said. “We were kind of flat. We were confused. Fragile. I’m sure the people on Twitter … you said there were no boos in the arena.

“I’m sure on Twitter, if you could boo on Twitter, there would be no doubt when we were losing 19 against Auburn, people were booing on Twitter. I promise you. Bud Walton, we heard nothing but positives.”

The Razorbacks recovered to beat Auburn 75-73 and began to improve game by game with healthy striker Justin Smith making their presence felt in offensive production, defensive cohesion and leadership.

Arkansas enters the final weekend of the regular season with a 10-game winning streak in the SEC, the longest since the 1994 NCAA champion team had 11 consecutive games to end the regular season and added another one against Georgia in the SEC tournament.

Arkansas overtook Auburn by 29-10 in a stretch of less than 10 minutes to draw 47-47 in a shot by Jalen Tate. The Razorbacks took the lead with 58-56 on a Moses Moody tray with 8:57 remaining.

They’ve barely looked back since then.

The Hogs won their next three SEC games at Vanderbilt and at home against Ole Miss and Mississippi State by an average of 17.3 points per game.

In the last of those games, Arkansas hit just one of its first 17 shots, including a streak of 15 consecutive failures, and recovered from a 16-3 handicap to overtake the Bulldogs, 61-45.

Since that game, which followed three days after an 81-77 loss in Oklahoma in the Big 12 / SEC Challenge, it has been nothing but a win for Musselman and the Razorbacks, who took second place behind the SEC champion. Alabama for the SEC Tournament next week.

Musselman on Thursday dreamed of the phrase “Sharing the ball with stardom”, with a plan to pass it on to his club, which had seven different scorers during the SEC’s winning streak.

“Everyone can have their day or their game if you share the ball,” he said. “I think the reason we have different scorers is that we share the ball. We try to mix up our offensive sets.

“We try to find a winning match each night. Like where do we think we can attack and find a winning match? That was important. I just think the guys are sharing. I think they believe in each other. You know I think that’s why that we have had some success both offensively and defensively. “

Statistics from Arkansas’s ten-game winning streak at the SEC show a team with balanced scores, improved defense and solid rebounds.

Moody was the top scorer four times during the streak, including three games with more than 20 points.

Smith did this twice, while Desi Sills, JD Notae, Connor Vanover, Tate and Davonte Davis did it once. Arkansas had seven occasions for a player to score more than 20 points during the streak, led by 28 from Moody’s against South Carolina, 26 at Vanderbilt and 24 against Alabama.

In addition, Tate scored 25 on Vanderbilt, Sills scored 22 in Auburn, Smith scored 22 in South Carolina and Notae scored 21 against Gamecocks.

Razorbacks have an average of 1.05 points per ball possession during the sequence, according to HoopLens analysis, but most notably, they are holding opponents at 0.89 points per ball possession.

In all its other games, Arkansas is shooting 51.6% on two-point field shots, 34.2% on three-point field shots and 73.3% on free throws by HoopLens. These numbers are improved in the sequence of 10 consecutive victories, against a provably more difficult competition, to 52.5% in the two-point shots, 34.4% in the three-point shots and 75.1% in the free throws.

Arkansas won the rebound battle in seven games during the straight, lost twice (in Kentucky, Missouri) and drew with South Carolina 39-39 in their last game.

And Razorbacks won in all different ways, averaging 80.9 points per game and keeping opponents at 68.7 points per game.

They won games that resembled hand-to-hand combat in painting, such as the victory over the State of Mississippi, in which the Hogs hit 35.9% of the ground for 30.6% of the Bulldogs.

They won stunningly: 92-71 in Vanderbilt and 101-73 in South Carolina, and another four wins by more than 10 points.

The Razorbacks won consecutive super tight games in Kentucky (81-80) and Missouri (86-81 in overtime. In the first, Kentucky had a 72-60 handicap with 6:11 remaining to win an 80-79 advantage over the three points from Davion Mintz, the Wildcats 10th in time and 14th in the game, with 14 seconds remaining.

Tate took a star turn in the final seconds, grabbing a rebound from Davis’s mistake and causing a foul with 4 seconds remaining. Tate hit both free throws to give Arkansas their 5th straight win.

The Razorbacks also took a five-point lead with 2:54 remaining in their next game in Missouri. Mitchell Smith in an offensive rebound and Parker Braun, with 9 seconds left, allowed the Tigers to push the game into overtime. Davis gave Arkansas the definitive advantage in 82-81 with 35 seconds remaining, so Moody and Smith made two free throws each to freeze the victory.

Arkansas has road wins in Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Missouri and South Carolina during the streak, its first stretch of four consecutive SEC wins since the 1995 team did so.

Then there’s the Texas A&M saga. Arkansas lost two games scheduled against the Aggies during their winning streak, although they are due to host them on Saturday.

A win against Aggies and Arkansas will equal the 1993-94 Razorbacks submission. The question then becomes: can they match that championship team’s post-season success?

Men’s Basketball

TEXAS A&M NO. 12 ARKANSAS

WHEN 4 pm on Saturday

WHERE Walton Arena, Fayetteville

RECORDS Texas A&M 8-8, 2-7 SEC; Arkansas 20-5, 12-4

TV SEC Network