Published: Sunday, January 3, 2021
FAYETTEVILLE — Mike Neighbors didn’t meet with his team in the locker room after the University of Arkansas’ 75-64 loss at Kentucky on Thursday night.
But Neighbors is convinced his team has moved past the loss in the SEC opener and is focused on today’s home game against Missouri in Walton Arena.
“I walked by the training room and they were in there having the exact conversation that I would have had as their coach,” Neighbors said.
The Arkansas coach is fond of breaking the SEC schedule into segments. He already has talked about the Razorbacks’ first six SEC games, which include three ranked opponents and a road trip to Tennessee.
But the players can’t do that, he said.
“You’ve got to look at it as 16 individual games,” Neighbors said. “They have to now go, ‘OK, that’s one that you can’t get back. We've got to make sure we take care of business at home.’ That’s such a huge thing in this league. Our kids know that.”
The No. 10 Razorbacks (9-2, 0-1 SEC) will look to put their league opener and lowest point total of the season in the rear-view mirror at 4 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
Arkansas struggled from the three-point line and had trouble getting to the free-throw line against No. 13 Kentucky. Those aspects have been strengths for the Razorbacks this season.
The Razorbacks still lead the country in free throws made (200) and attempted (284) despite being limited to just 11 of 17 by the Wildcats. They also averaged making more than 10 three-pointers per game going into the Kentucky game, but managed just five Thursday.
The Wildcats’ length gave Arkansas problems and took away some aggressiveness, Neighbors said.
“Got us taking probably a couple not as good of shots as we normally take,” Neighbors said. “I think we made a couple jumpers there early, got us maybe a little too confident that they were just going to keep falling. We got less aggressive, stopped taking it in there.
“They blocked a bunch of shots and changed a bunch of others. They were very, very good defensively. We knew they were but they were even better live and in person than they were on film.”
Arkansas faces a Missouri team that concerns Neighbors.
The Tigers (4-2, 0-1) dropped their SEC opener, losing 74-59 to Alabama. The game was tied 34-34 at halftime. Missouri’s other loss came to No. 24 Missouri State.
“They are equally as good a shooting team [as Kentucky],” Neighbors said. “They’ve got a bunch of newcomers as well that added to their depth. They don’t have the 10-game dings and bangs and nicks and bruises that we have.
“They are really balanced this year. Like I was talking about with Kentucky, they can beat you inside or they can beat you outside. They have two that were on the SEC All-Freshmen team. Those kids are sophomores now, and you get a transfer from South Carolina.”
Missouri will try to control the pace and slow the Razorbacks’ high-powered offense, Neighbors said. The Tigers also will try to take advantage of size mismatches by posting up 6-0 Aijha Blackwell — who leads Missouri by averaging 14.3 points and 8.8 rebounds per game — against the Razorbacks’ smaller guards.
“They’re probably not going to take an open shot with 26 or 27 seconds on the shot clock,” Neighbors said. “They’re really going to make us work defensively. We also don’t have much to watch, which makes them a little scary for me.
“Only playing five or six games, there’s more to come. They could be holding something back.”
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