Feelin’ Good Again
Prepping to go to Call the Hogs in College Station
The Arkansas Razorback Men’s basketball team got another sorely needed win on Wednesday night at home against the LSU Tigers. After an underwhelming first half that saw the Hogs go into the half down by a point, the Razorbacks came out in the second half and avenged their early season loss to the Tigers with a 70-58 win. An NCAA Tournament bid is suddenly back within grasp for the Hogs and fans are starting to feel good again about Calipari’s first season as head coach.
Next up for the Razorbacks is a road game against Texas A&M in College Station.
That fat little point guard is killing us
Even before I learned his name, I was a fan of Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor IV. I am not sure the first time I uttered the phrase, “That fat little point guard is killing us”, but I remember saying it during the game and then repeating it to my father in our post Arkansas game phone call.
Wade Taylor IV is neither little nor fat, unless you put him on a college basketball court. Then he is. But he has had some monster games against Arkansas.
And the rest of the college basketball world. Barring some catastrophe, the 6’0” senior point guard will leave College Station as the all-time leader in points scored for the Aggies, as well as top-10 in assists and steals.
He is probably my favorite person to come out of the home of the Dixie Chicken since Robert Earl Keen. If you were in college in Texas (as I described here) in the late 90s, you were listening to Robert Earl Keen. A lot.
I first mentioned Taylor IV in an article I wrote over at bestofarkansassports.com in 2022. Oh no. I also described rooting for a John Calipari coached team as the sixth circle of hell. That aged poorly. Hell’s fires burn hottest for hypocrites.
Of course, the game where Taylor IV cemented his legacy as an all-time great Arkansas nemesis was last year when he poured in 41 points against the Hogs in Fayetteville.
The Aggies lost that game on a last second shot by Tramon Mark. Mark got him again this year on a last second layup to give Texas a win at home over A&M. A rare highlight in an otherwise rather dismal season for Mark, last year’s best Arkansas player. The Texas coach refuses to give Mark the ball at the top of the key, run a big man up to set a screen so Mark can drive left and let Mark shoot that sweet, sweet elbow jumper of his.
Oh well, bad for Texas and good for the rest of the league. Back to the Aggies.
Taylor IV is a college basketball throwback. He has played four years for the same team and the same coach. I suspect he had chances to go other places to finish his college career over the years, particularly after the Aggies missed out on the NCAA tournament in his freshman season. But he stuck it out and is now the best player on a top-10 team poised to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament. Good for him and good for college basketball fans.
My Second Trip to an Arkansas game in College Station
The entire family is packing up and taking the trip down to College Station this weekend to watch the Hogs. It will be the second time we have made the trip to watch the Razorbacks play at the home of the Aggies in the last three years. Despite a lot of screen time of us in Hog gear behind the Razorback bench, Muss and the boys couldn’t steal a victory on the road on our last visit.
Texas A&M is known for its physical defense, hard rebounding and scoring inside the lane. They lead the nation in offensive rebounding differential. They return a number of players Arkansas fans will recognize from years past in addition to Wade Taylor IV, but two major additions have propelled them to new heights.
Forward Pharrell Payne and guard Zurich Phelps have made this year’s Aggies a far more dangerous team offensively than in years past. Payne is a relatively crude but effective low post scorer, while Phelps is a high-volume shooter who can create his own shot going to the basket. Both players will present problems for the Razorbacks.
Zvonimir Ivisic has been the best player on the floor for Arkansas in the last two games. However, if you were going to find a place to criticize the big Croation it would be for his one-on-one defense in the post. LSU’s freshman big man, Robert Miller III, had a season high 16 points on Wednesday night. Most of those came on shots against Big Z. Miller III came into the game averaging less than 3 points a game.
Maybe it was just a fluke. Random. Hot hand in a dice game kind of thing for Miller III. But Calipari was forced to play center Joseph Aidoo over Big Z down the stretch to slow Miller III down. Thankfully, Aidoo was up to the task. A good sign for the senior transfer center.
Arkansas will need an even better game from Aidoo if they hope to slow Payne down. The junior big man is averaging close to 10 points per game on just under 20 minutes a game. He has also had multiple 20 point plus games in conference play.
Zurich Phelps, as the announcers will remind you roughly 100 times on Saturday, transferred into Texas A&M from SMU. He is the Aggies second leading scorer this year behind Wade Taylor IV. His points typically come when the Aggies just clear out and let him drive to the bucket. DJ Wagner and Nelly Davis are going to have their hands full slowing down the opposing guards this Saturday morning.
Texas A&M has some other players who stand out. Forward Solomon Washington is very much an energy guy, who has a lot of Billy Richmond III in his game. He is definitely the type of player to pick up a technical foul by inserting himself into a disagreement between other players at the end of the game his team already has in the bag, then get called out on national television by his coach to quit jawing at the same opposing team’s fans in the tunnel to the locker room. Also known as the kind of guy you want on your team when you go into battle.
Undersized power forward Anderson Garcia just works and works on the boards. If you could put his motor into Trevon Brazille, you would have the second coming of Dennis Rodman. Fans will recognize guard Hayden Hefner and forward Henry Coleman III. Both guys have come back and revised their roles as designated shooter and banger, respectively.
Texas A&M’s coach, Buzz Williams. has done a great job of maximizing his team’s potential and minimizing their issues (frequent scoring droughts, inconsistent three-point shooting). Apparently, he is on the short list to take over the Indiana University job which will be open at the end of the season1. Part of me hopes he goes, good to get that guy out of the league. Another part of me would miss him. His teams play hard and overachieve. He doesn’t turn his entire roster over each year. He spends more time on the court than most of his players. What can I say? He has grown on me. I am something of a Buzz Williams fan.
If this is the last game Buzz coaches against the Hogs in the SEC regular season, it sure would be nice for it to be a win for the men from Fayetteville. The last couple of weeks have been markedly better for fans of Hog Basketball and as Robert Earl Keen sings, “It feels so good, feelin' good again”.
If you enjoyed these ramblings please like, share with a friend and subscribe to my substack.
I may have just made that up. Not made up. Someone told me. Like Adou Thiero getting over a bout with mononucleosis. My sister in law told me that and despite the face I can’t find any info about that being the case, it makes a lot of sense.