Whitt sends notice to SEC: Hogs have scoring trio, not duo

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Vanderbilt’s scouting report focused on Arkansas’ dynamic duo Wednesday night, but Jimmy Whitt Jr. proved it’s more of a terrific trio.

The graduate transfer from SMU scored a career-high 30 points in the Razorbacks’ 75-55 win over the Commodores, joining Mason Jones and Isaiah Joe as the third player on the team to hit that milestone this year.

Arkansas is just the fourth Division I team with three different 30-point scorers during the 2019-20 season - joining Minnesota, Nevada and Toledo - but the only one so far to have accomplished the feat in each of the last two seasons. (In addition to Jones and Joe, Daniel Gafford also hit 30 points last year.)

Together, Jones, Joe and Whitt are averaging 50.7 points per game, making them the top scoring trio in the SEC.

“I think it shows versatility,” Whitt said. “We have a lot of weapons on the offensive end and I think it makes us that much harder to guard, especially when you add in Reggie's 14, Desi's 13.

“When you have nights like that when everybody is out there producing on the offensive end, it's going to be really hard to match up with us and guard us.”

While his two teammates have each proven to be capable of going off for 30 points on any given night, Whitt’s performance was somewhat surprising. A fifth-year senior, his previous career high was 24 points - done just three times in his first 110 games in college.

Although he regularly hit the 30-point mark as a top-60 national recruit at Columbia, Mo., Hickman and averaged 30.6 points as a senior, Whitt has averaged just 10.3 points during career at Arkansas and SMU.

“I don’t think I’ve seen 30 points by name in five years, so it’s pretty cool,” Whitt said. “Doing it here was special for me. It’s special that I could come here with these fans and with this group of guys and be able to reach a milestone like that.”

Making Wednesday’s 30-point performance even more unique is that Whitt did it in an old-school way. Jones and Joe can each bomb it from deep, but he relies on an efficient mid-range game.

Whitt is one of only nine Division I players averaging at least 14.8 points without making a single three-pointer this season. Of that group, only Whitt, Green Bay’s Amari Davis and Hartford’s Malik Ellison are guards.

According to Sports Reference’s play index, no major conference guard has scored that much without the benefit of a three-pointer for an entire season since at least 1992-93. UCA’s LaQuentin Miles was the last player from any conference to accomplish the feat, doing so in 2011-12, and is only one of nine to do it in the previous 27 seasons.

“He is kind of an anomaly right now,” Vanderbilt head coach Jerry Stackhouse said. “Everybody is kind of getting to the basket or shooting the three. There are not a lot of guys playing in the mid-range game, but there are some outliers out there, some guys who are really good in the mid-range.

“A lot of the analytics and everything are kind of moving away from those shots, but if you have guys that can hit them at a high rate, as a coach we will take it.”

On top of that, Whitt made it two straight games an Arkansas player has dropped 30 points on an SEC opponent, as Joe was coming off a 34-point outburst at Ole Miss.

They are the 18th and 19th different players to hit that milestone in SEC play since the Razorbacks joined the conference in 1991-92. Here is a full list of 30-point games against SEC competition…