Over the past few seasons, the Arkansas Razorbacks have been a thorn in the side of No. 8 Texas A&M men’s basketball. Take, for example, last season’s buzzer-beater loss to the Hogs on the road and a late-season Quad 3 loss at home that had the Aggies sliding dangerously close to the NCAA Tournament bubble.
But this year, things are looking up for the Maroon and White. A&M is closing in on a 2-seed in March Madness, coming in at a 2.24 in the Bracket Matrix, a composite average of bracketology projections. Meanwhile, Arkansas is squarely on the bubble in coach John Calipari’s first year in Fayetteville, Arkansas after leaving Kentucky in the offseason.
With both teams boasting impressive KenPom defensive efficiency numbers — 27th in the nation for the Razorbacks, while the Aggies are No. 6 — Saturday’s matchup has the look of a rock fight.
That’s the way A&M likes it. It’s coming off a 69-53 win over Georgia, in which the Maroon and White held the visitors to a stretch of 14 minutes without a single bucket from the field.
“When they scored their first basket, [assistant coach Devin Johnson] was like, “Hey, Coach,’” coach Buzz Williams said after the Aggies’ win over Georgia on Tuesday. “ … And I turn around and I go, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘You know, that was their first basket.’ I go, ‘Yeah, I don’t want them to score again, though. See how long we can do it again.’”
Paint prowess
While the high-flying guard duo of graduate Wade Taylor IV and senior Zhuric Phelps gets a lot of attention — and it’s by all means deserved, with the backcourt duo averaging 15 and 14.5 points per game, respectively — it’s the Aggies’ frontcourt that has allowed them to reach their top-10 ranking.
In the Maroon and White’s past two games, it’s been junior forwards Pharrel Payne and Solomon Washington carrying the load on offense. Payne led all scorers with 20 points in A&M’s road victory over then-No. 15 Missouri on Feb. 8, and Washington had 17 points, five boards, a block and a pair of steals in the Aggies’ blowout victory over the Georgia Bulldogs on Tuesday.
“We’re everybody’s Super Bowl,” Washington said after the game. “We know everybody’s gonna throw their best first punch against us.”
And don’t forget about senior F Andersson Garcia and graduate F Henry Coleman III, who are each tied for A&M’s rebounding lead with 132 boards on the year.
“I really like our four [forwards],” Williams said after the Georgia game. “And I think that our four, we were playing with three of them a lot tonight, just like they were, and some of that rotational mix ended up being good for us. A lot of that is because of what Solo and Andy are able to do on the weak side.”
But if the Aggies want to secure another conference win as they chase No. 1 Auburn and No. 2 Alabama in the Southeastern Conference standings, they’ll have to get past an NCAA Tournament-caliber squad to do it.
Calling the Hogs
While A&M’s big men have had great seasons so far, they’ll be up against one of their largest tests — literally — in 7-foot-2 sophomore F Zvonimir Ivišić.
Ivišić followed Calipari to Arkansas from Kentucky, and it’s been a good move for the Croatia native so far. He ranks second in the SEC in blocked shots, and had 14 points — 12 of them from 3-point shots — in the Razorbacks’ win over a top-15 Kentucky team in Coach Cal’s return to Rupp Arena. How many times do you see a 7-footer shoot 43% from behind the arc on the year?
Arkansas has beat ranked teams on the road before, and they can do it again. But if the Aggies want to prove they belong in the SEC’s top tier, these are the types of games they have to win on a consistent basis.
“Our toughness, our grit, our connectivity, all of those things are prerequisites relative to how we play,” Williams said. “And we have to continue to be prepared, including Saturday morning at 11 o’clock, for being able to not only understand the plan, but to be able to execute it. And so I have great confidence in who we are and how we’re going about it, and it’s just the endurance required to do it day after day after day.”
