FAYETTEVILLE — It wasn’t hard to find Arkansas’ weakness in the 71-63 loss at Ole Miss on Wednesday.
The starting front line of Michael Sanchez and Devonta Abron scored one point and grab one rebound. Ole Miss’ front line of Reginald Buckner and Murphy Holloway, meanwhile, had 27 points and 25 rebounds.
It was part of a night in which Ole Miss outrebounded the Razorbacks 48-26, turning 18 offensive rebounds into 17 second-chance points.
“They just took it right at us in that game,” Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said.
Arkansas (12-4, 1-1 in Southeastern Conference) will be back in action against LSU (11-5, 1-1) in Bud Walton Arena tonight, trying to move past the disappointment from its first SEC road game. To do so, though, the Razorbacks know their performance in the post — and on the boards — will be critical.
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It’s no secret Arkansas’ question mark this season was its lack of depth and experience inside — one that grew even more when Marshawn Powell went down with a season-ending knee injury in November.
Anderson isn’t expecting those questions to simply go away. But he does expect Arkansas’ efforts underneath to be more much improved or else the Razorbacks will struggle in conference play.
“You’ve got athletes in this league,” Anderson said. “We don’t have the Phi-Slama-Jamma kind of guys. So you’ve got to be able to neutralize those guys. How do you neutralize those guys? You’ve got to do the fundamental things. You’ve got to hit people.”
Anderson believes early foul trouble played an important hand in the Ole Miss struggles.
Abron and Sanchez were both in foul trouble in the first half, which affected the flow of the game.
“You can’t afford that early in the game,” Anderson said. “It has an effect on how you play the rest of the game and I thought we started playing tentative.”
It resulted in Arkansas’ worst rebounding effort of the season, one that can be repeated without improvement against LSU’s frontcourt tonight.
LSU should present another challenge with a front line that includes 7-foot center Justin Hamilton (12.9 points, 7.4 rebounds) and veteran forward Storm Warren (8.4 points and 5.3 rebounds). But LSU coach Trent Johnson said his team must improve on the boards, too, after struggling in the loss at Alabama.
“We’re going to have to take care of the ball, and we’re going to have to make good decisions and get back to winning the battle on the glass, because they’re going to shoot it quick, and they’re going to shoot it deep,” Johnson said of the Razorbacks.
“(Wednesday) night, we got handled on the glass.”
Senior Marvell Waithe was the only member of Arkansas’ frontcourt who enjoyed a solid night against the Rebels, scoring a career-high 15 points to go along with four rebounds. In addition to Abron and Sanchez, freshman Hunter Mickelson was scoreless with one rebound in 11 minutes at Ole Miss.
Anderson said the front line — and the rest of the Hogs — are capable of success on the boards in SEC play. He said the Connecticut loss, in which the Razorbacks outrebounded the Huskies 47-35, was proof.
But he knows what LSU must be thinking tonight.
“They are going to see that as one of our weaknesses, and they are going to try to attack and exploit us on that,” Anderson said. “The finishing part of defense is rebounding the basketball. That’s all about want-to. We’ve got to want-to a lot more.”
Anderson is confident his team is eager for another chance to prove it in Bud Walton Arena.
“We know we can play better than we played at Ole Miss,” Anderson said. “So now we get a chance to come back and hopefully play much better at home.”