By Otis Kirk
FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas enters the SEC Tournament on a downward slide having lost three games in a row, but on Thursday night they will go up against another struggling team in Auburn.
Arkansas (19-12) is the No. 10 seed while Auburn sits at No. 7. The two met on Saturday, Jan. 7, at Auburn with the Tigers taking a 72-59 victory. Auburn (20-11) was 12-3 after that win. They won the next four games to move to 16-3 and ranked among the nation's best. But they finished the season 4-8 from that point forward. Auburn did finish the regular season with a nice 79-70 win over Tennessee.
While Auburn has had its struggles in recent weeks, Eric Musselman welcomes a new beginning for his team that has won two games in the last seven games.
"Yeah, I think as you look at … obviously the way we ended we were so close at Alabama," Musselman said. "You look at our schedule in league and the five teams that we played twice and four of them are the top seeds in the SEC Tournament. Bama being 1, (Texas) A&M 2, Kentucky 3 and Missouri 4. So it was a difficult end to the season for sure. Four of our last six games were against teams that are top 25 teams. But you’re right, this is a second season for us. We should have excitement going into Nashville."
Much of the speculation has been on can the Razorbacks make it to the NCAA Tournament. According to ESPN, Arkansas has nothing to worry about in that situation. ESPN has six SEC teams as locks to get in. They have Arkansas, Alabama, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri locks to get in. They list Auburn as a team that should be in. Then, ESPN lists Mississippi State and Vanderbilt as teams with work to do.
When it comes to the tournament time, Musselman's teams have been very good at it reaching the Elite 8 the past two seasons. Musselman also liked his team the previous year that was cut short due to COVID.
"Yeah I think that, you know I think that we were able to make runs the last two years and even, you know, quite frankly the year that it was shut down for the pandemic," Musselman said. "I think that I’ve talked about us winning that first game in the tournament and the confidence that Isaiah Joe and Mason (Jones), in his heart, thought we were going to win that tournament.
"No one knows at all how that would play out, but that team was very confident as well at this point of the season. I think with this team, you know, just again with a lot of young guys, just getting them to understand that this is a new season. Going to come down to probably one possession in many of these games. You’re watching the games in the other conference tournaments that have played out and there’s been some incredibly exciting games."
Sophomore forward John Broome leads Auburn with 14 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game. In the win over Arkansas on Jan. 7, Broome had 10 points, 10 rebounds and six blocked shots along with a pair of assists and one steal.
"First of all, Broome is in my opinion an all-league type player," Musselman said. "He’s a hard cover. Then you have to worry about their guards and their wing, guys like (Allen) Flanigan at the wing. So they’ve got a lot of offensive weapons that you can try to game plan against. We need our front court to play better than they’ve played of late. So I’ve mentioned Kamani (Johnson) because Kamani brings something to our team as far as experience goes.
"And obviously we know we have a young roster and we know we have a lot of guys that this will be their first experience in conference (tournament) play. How our front line plays out in this first game, not really sure. Obviously Kamani, the (Makhi and Makhel) Mitchell twins, (Jalen) Graham. All those guys … how we defend Broome is still a work in progress. We had one practice yesterday where we looked at several different ways to guard both their up front guys and then maybe trying to guard their back court a little bit differently as well."
Auburn has some experienced players on its roster including two, Flanigan and Chris Moore, from Arkansas.
"Auburn’s very well-coached and they’ve got a lot of veterans," Musselman said. "As I’ve looked at the experience on their roster, I mean, Flanigan, No. 22, has played in these tournaments. And Chris Moore has and (Zep) Jasper and (Wendell) Green and (K.D.) Johnson.
"I mean they’ve got a lot of guys. (Jaylin) Williams, who’s an excellent scorer and rebounder at the power forward spot. So they have a lot of guys back that were in this tournament last year. So we’ve got to understand from a preparation standpoint that Auburn does have more experience in this setting than we do."
At Auburn, Arkansas was only 19 of 32 (59 percent) from the free throw line. That has been an issue much of season particularly since beginning SEC play.
"I think with youth and inexperience in the SEC play, maybe that’s affected our free throw shooting, and affecting some closing in close games," Musselman said. "But now everybody’s got a full college season under their belt, Everybody on our roster, even the transfers, have now played a full SEC [schedule]. So now you go into the conference tournament, and you’ve got one game to focus on.
"We’ll continue to on free throw shooting. You want guys to step up to the line and have great confidence, because a lot of free throw shooting is confidence and blocking out anything other than you, the ball and the rim. We did some free throw shooting drills yesterday, and we’ll continue to do them today."
Arkansas and Auburn will tip at 6 p.m. on Thursday and televised on the SEC Network. The winner will face No. 2 seed Texas A&M on Friday night also at 6 p.m. and on the SEC Network.
Photos Courtesy of Craven Whitlow CW3 Action Sports
