razorbacks

FAYETTEVILLE - Arkansas’ 8-0  nationally Top 10 men’s basketball Razorbacks host the University of North Charlotte 49ers tonight at Walton Arena.

Tip-off is 8 p.m. and will be televised by the SEC Network.

Preferring to be called Charlotte rather than UNC-Charlotte, the 49ers of Conference USA are 4-3 and coming off an 86-79 victory over George Washington University last Saturday in Charlotte.  Jahmir Young, a 6-1 guard, scored 26 points for Charlotte against George Washington and leads Coach Ron Sanchez’s 49ers in scoring averaging 19.7 points per game.

49ers Clyde Trapp, Austin Butler and Aly Khalifa average 12.3, 10.9 and 9.6 points per game.

Trapp, a high-leaping 6-4 guard, averages a team-leading 7.1 rebounds while Butler, a 6-5 guard averages 6.0 boards.

Khalifa, the tallest 49er at 6-11, averages 5.1 boards and leads Charlotte in blocked shots (eight).

James Threadgill, a 6-6 guard, has started six of Charlotte’s seven games.

Robert Braswell, a 6-7 forward averaging 8.1 points, and 6-8 forward Jared Garcia play the most off Sanchez’s bench.

Arkansas comes off a 93-78 victory Saturday at Walton Arena over the University of Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans more difficult to achieve than the final score would indicate.

Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman said postgame every victory should be appreciated,  gave due credit to Coach Darrell Walker’s Trojans  and praised Razorbacks forwards Au’Diese Toney and Jaylin Williams and guard Devo Davis for “playing on a different level.”

Nevertheless he found much to improve upon between last Saturday’s game and tonight’s meeting with Charlotte.

“Defensively, we didn’t play as good as we need to play,” Musselman said.   “And we didn’t play for 40 minutes quite the way that I want us to play.  We’ve got issues to get better at for sure. I mean, we started the game off and gave up a 3 ball. We don’t want to start a game giving up a 3 and we don’t want a team to shoot 8 of 21 from 3. We’ve got to do a better job of that.”

Guard JD Notate, 18.1 average, and Toney, 14.0 and top off the bench guard Chris Lykes, and top off the bench forward Stanley Umude, 12.4 and 10.5, lead the Razorbacks’ scoring.

Williams, 6-10 playing power forward teamed with 7-3 center Connor Vanover or center when Vanover isn’t in the game, leads Arkansas rebounding averaging 8.8.