Consistency is key, a phrase every single college basketball coach in the country wants to live by. Arkansas 10-9 (1-5 SEC), however, has done a poor job of living up to that standard through 19 games of the 2023-24 season.
With eyes from ESPN's College GameDay and a national audience all glaring down on the Hogs' upcoming Saturday matchup with the No. 6 Kentucky Wildcats 14-4 (4-2 SEC), finding a way to reform back into a consistent and cohesive team is of the utmost importance for head coach Eric Musselman.
"I’ve talked about it before games, you can never take for granted… I mean, every one of our games is on national TV," Musselman said on Friday. "Everywhere we’ve played, there’s been good crowds. You shouldn’t get any more up for Purdue, Kentucky, A&M. That’s the job of a consistent competitor."
One peek at Arkansas' record and it becomes obvious that consistency is this team's weakness, amongst other things. Sure, a preseason win against a highly-ranked Purdue team was impressive, but it didn't mean anything in the end.
Rocking out a jam-packed Bud Walton Arena while beating the No. 7 Duke Blue Devils was thought to be a catalyst for a turnaround too, but five conference blowouts in as many losses has left the Razorbacks scrambling for answers.
"Consistent competitors get up every single game. I don’t want us to be consistent in what we’ve done the last few games, so we do want to change. And Kentucky should grab your attention when you look at their numbers. You better bring their A-game with the way they’re scoring the basketball."
But what does Arkansas' A-game even look like? Against Duke, leading scorer Tramon Mark didn't play due to injury. In that matchup, forward Trevon Brazile managed a double-double and guard Khalif Battle racked up 21 points.
Neither Brazile or Battle have come close to that level of production ever since SEC play began. On top of that, Mark and Brazile may be out for the Kentucky game with migraines that are "very, very unpredictable" and knee soreness, respectively, according to Musselman.
Truth be told, no one besides the Arkansas coaching staff knows how to get this team playing its absolute best as one unit. With the Hogs' postseason hopes hanging on by a thread, identifying and executing a game plan against the Wildcats is the first step in a long path back to normality.
"Number one, we haven’t offensive rebounded all year, so I don’t know why we’d start this game," Musselmam said. "So we should be good in transition defense if you’re not going to the glass. We have had too many sequences where we’ve got guys in no-man’s land. They’re not going to the glass and they’re not getting back. That equates to our record in league play."
Getting off to a good start — similar to the one that came in Arkansas' lone conference victory against Texas A&M — is crucial as well.
"We were able to do that against Texas A&M," Musselman said. "I thought it helped fuel our confidence, when you're playing a team like Kentucky and they're number one in the country and points per game. They're number three in field goal percentage, number seven in three point percentage and eighth in assists.
"So there's a lot of things defensively that — and we have a shorter prep. They played on Tuesday, we played on Wednesday. The shorter prep time is a factor as well. So we've got to have a really good practice today in our preparation. We got to be really clean and concise because we're not gonna have a long drawn-out game plan just because of the lack of space here."
Arkansas will get another crack at finding consistency when it takes on No. 6 Kentucky this Saturday inside Bud Walton Arena. The game is set to tip off at 5 p.m. CT and will broadcast on ESPN.
