WHAT THEY BRING

Same mediocre offense from two weeks ago

Well, it’s the same as last time, just with Isaiah Joe back. After getting demolished at the hands of Tennessee two weeks back, the Hogs proceeded to drop two straight to Mississippi State (by one) and Florida (by 14), providing no memorable offensive performance in either. They’ve gotten back on track somewhat by looking fine against Missouri (1.139 PPP, 12-25 from three), but being 5-9 in the worst SEC since 2012-13 is not going to do you any favors with the selection committee. Just like Tennessee had an opportunity to impress, Arkansas still has theirs, and at minimum, they need to finish 3-1 in their final four to feel positive about their bubble status.

Arkansas’s offense ranks #98 in KenPom, largely driven by a team-wide aversion to rebounding and kinda crappy three-point shooting. Of the four players on the team with 40+ three-point attempts, no one is hitting more than Isaiah Joe’s 34.7%, which is a worse hit rate than both Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James. After their 14-2 (3-1) start, the Razorbacks have sputtered through a 3-8 run driven by a combination of offensive struggles, an interior defense collapse, and mediocre luck in close games. It’s not ideal.

Mason Jones, still the focus

Leading the pack of the team, even with Isaiah Joe’s return, is Mason Jones.

Mr. Jones is a second round NBA Draft possibility, a volume shooter completely fearless of pulling up from anywhere. More so than the rest of the team, Jones loves to push the pace in transition, whether it leads to a scoring opportunity for himself or for someone else.

He also gets an outsized amount of run in their ball-screen sets as the main handler, which has led to pullup attempts that are…uh, ill-advised. I like him way more as a finisher at the rim/potentially good three-point shooter than any sort of reliable mid-range option.

Isaiah Joe is back!

We didn’t scout Joe last time due to his injury, but he’s a fairly easy one. Joe has taken 17 attempts at the rim all season; he has taken 222 from behind the arc.

He is very rarely a threat to enter the paint with the ball in his hands, and you can almost exclusively find him spotting up for a three, whether open or not. Pound-for-pound, Joe is actually a bit more dangerous off the dribble. He doesn’t pull up as often there, but he’s shown a willingness to do so either off of a ball screen or in transition.

Jimmy Whitt, Jr. is going to take a lot of non-rim twos

Jimmy Whitt, Jr. is a pretty undersized small forward (6’3”) that refrains entirely from shooting threes, but never turns the ball over and is a very heavy user of non-rim twos.

Whitt does get to the rim somewhat often, especially as the recipient on paint cuts, but Whitt would prefer to take his shots 5-10 feet from the rim. He hits about 42.8% of his non-rim two-point attempts, which is actually a very good rate.

Tennessee has to guard these a little harder than they’re used to guarding them; it’s like watching Jimmer pull up if Jimmer loved the free throw line.

Others of note

Arkansas can’t and won’t go very deep, both because of injury limitations and because of who was left over from the coaching exchange. As such, you need to know that Desi Sills loves a spot-up three, even if he misses it. (He also lost his starting spot against Missouri in exchange for Jalen Harris.)

It’s worth knowing that Adrio Bailey, at 6’6”, is the starting 4 that pops out for a three occasionally but does most of his damage at the rim.

Reggie Chaney, at 6’8”, just recently took over starting at center. It’s working…okay, I guess? Almost exclusively a cuts/pick-and-roll guy.

Jalen Harris misses threes a lot, but he’s a starter now.

The defense has completely collapsed

Hey, this sucks now! Against Tennessee, the Hogs allowed what had mostly been a poor Tennessee offense to go off for 1.203 PPP, their second-best output of the season. Tennessee got to the free throw line pretty much anytime they wanted, rebounded an elevated number of their own misses, and faced pretty little resistance when they got to the rim. It was a total destruction, but after a white-hot start to the season, this has largely been what’s occurred for Arkansas over the last two months or so. They do still force turnovers – quite a bit of them, actually – but it’s hard for that to matter much when you give up so many easy buckets.

The Tennessee game was simply the fourth in a six-game stretch where every Arkansas opponent went for 1+ PPP, and while the Tennessee outing was the worst of the group, allowing 1.124 PPP to a Florida offense that had been held to 0.773 PPP against Ole Miss 10 days prior was pretty horrid.

The nice thing about the Arkansas collapse is that it’s almost impossibly easy to sum up: there is basically zero rim protection to speak of and they commit so, so many fouls.

Interior defense has somehow gotten worse

It’s pretty important for this Tennessee offense, which is getting better, that Arkansas sucks this badly at the rim.

The Razorbacks rank 317th in blocked shots at the rim, and I can’t imagine you will be stunned when I tell you they rank 346th in FG% allowed at the rim.

They’re way better at mid-range defense – more on that in a minute – but when your absolute tallest option at center is 6’8” and he hasn’t blocked more than three shots in a game all season, you’ve got a problem.

Arkansas has gotten demolished on basket and flash cuts this season and hasn’t defended post-ups well at all.

But the mid-range defense is still solid

Mid-range defense, however, is a lot better. That’s the other, better side of having a pretty small lineup: everyone can move pretty quickly and close out on your 15-foot jumper. I don’t want to dwell on these for long, but their mid-range work has saved the two-point defense as a whole from being bottom of the barrel.

Tennessee should work to avoid these shots. In terms of perimeter shooting, Tennessee did make six of their 16 attempts from downtown, but the Arkansas 3PT% allowed has mostly held up. Just go to the rim instead when it’s clearly far easier to get points there.

No rebounding, many fouls

Also, just like we discussed last time, Arkansas is still terrible at defensive rebounding and still committing an absurd amount of fouls despite having a short rotation.

All of their preferred options at center commit 4+ fouls per 40 minutes; Tennessee should go at them as often as possible. At 6’5”, Jones is probably the best rebounder on the team, which is not a good sign for a team about to play against Yves Pons and John Fulkerson.

NEXT PAGE: Probably not winning by 21 again, but who knows with these teams