A season marred by record-setting lows only worsened on Wednesday night, as Arkansas (12-12, 3-8 SEC) suffered its seventh double-digit conference loss to the No. 8 Tennessee Volunteers, 92-63, inside Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville.
Even after a hopeful 78-75 win over the Georgia Bulldogs earlier in the week, the mood was already set for a ravaging defeat before the ball was ever tipped.
Despite playing against one of the best teams in the country, Hoop Hog fans made their opinions known about their apathy for a crumbling basketball season by not showing up to the game.
Initially, it seemed that fans were going to be proven wrong by head coach Eric Musselman's squad. The first half wasn't perfect, but Arkansas stayed competitive and found itself down only six points at the half against an uber-talented Volunteers squad.
Disaster struck in the second, however, and a close, hard-fought game turned into another bloodbath for the Razorbacks thanks to turnovers, poor paint defense, a lack of competitive spirit and low physicality.
"Tennessee was more physical than us, created more turnovers," Musselman said after the game. "The points off turnovers was a killer. We’ve talked about our inability at times to take care of the basketball. Live-ball turnovers were a huge, huge problem tonight."
Arkansas finished the game with 15 turnovers to just nine assists. To make matters worse, Tennessee converted those turnovers into 28 points — including 14 fast-break points.
"We’ve got to draw free throws attempted. That’s our game, is getting to the foul line. Tennessee’s a very, very physical team. Tennessee opponents I think in SEC play average over 22 free throws attempted. Tonight we got 15.
"We had a goal of trying to get 30. We thought that was a realistic goal. We got half of those. So either we’ve got to do a better job, I guess, of playing through contact, or initiating contact. Because that was a big part of the game plan, and we were unable to get free throws attempted."
Once Tennessee extended its lead out to 20+ points, fans didn't boo or chirp the team in a desperate plea for change. Instead, they left their seats to beat out the traffic. Those same fans who decided to watch an Arkansas team destined to miss the tournament didn't have enough interest to stay until the final buzzer.
Call it whatever you like, but Musselman himself said that "Tennessee had a better competitive spirit" than the Hogs. That doesn't provide much hope for the remainder of the season, and a team littered with dysfunction will be met with equal amounts of apathy until it figures out how to consistently care.
Up next, Arkansas will travel to take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs in Starkville, Mississippi, this Saturday. The game is set for a 1 p.m. CT tip-off and will be broadcast on ESPNU.
