Arkansas basketball's (17-12, 6-10 SEC) offense was atrocious Saturday in its 72-53 loss to South Carolina at Colonial Life Arena, so who can blame coach John Calipari for saying postgame that he just wanted to get to the locker room?
Calipari's Razorbacks put up one of the worst offensive performances in the shot-clock era, and the Gamecocks took control early on. South Carolina led by as much as 35 points and never trailed in the game.
"Seven minutes to go, I said, ‘No fouls. I want to be in the locker room in 10 minutes,'" Calipari said he told his team. "Then 3:50 to go, I said, ‘Don’t you foul. I want to be in the locker room in five minutes,’ and I think we were. We needed to just get out of the gym. We gave it away a lot earlier, or they took it from us."
The Razorbacks were down six points early, and after a D.J. Wagner layup with 16:54 minutes left in the first half, they didn't score again for nearly five minutes until Jonas Aidoo split a pair of free throws. Arkansas didn't see another field goal fall until there were 5:58 minutes left in the half and it was down by double digits.
"(South Carolina) beat Texas the same way they beat us," Calipari said. "It was almost a carbon copy. But when you go 0-for-17, you shouldn’t win a game. Somebody’s got to make a shot. When you’re 0-for-17, you’re not going to be in a good game."
By the time the two teams headed to the locker room, Arkansas was down, 32-14, thanks to a 12.5% shooting effort that included an 0-for-8 mark from deep. Only four players — Aidoo (6), Wagner (4), Billy Richmond III (2) and Karter Knox (2) — registered points.
The Hogs finished the first half 3-for-24 from the field and only Richmond, Wagner and Aidoo made a field goal. The 14 points Arkansas scored were the lowest since it played Nebraska in the 1987 NIT, when it scored 12.
In the second half, things didn't get much better. Arkansas shot at a higher clip — 42.9% from the field and 21.4% from three — but the game was largely uncompetitive and the Hogs needed a late-game 22-6 run to cut the deficit to below 20 points.
A big reason for that was because South Carolina forward Collin Murray-Boyles was unstoppable. He finished with 35 points on 12-of-16 shooting, and all of his scoring came inside the arc.
"What bothered me was we played behind him," Calipari said. "I’ve watched the tape. He’s played well. He’s averaging 20 a game almost. And then what he did here, he said, ‘Uh oh, they cannot guard me,’ and they just, ‘throw me the ball.’ And guess what? Even if we trapped him, we couldn’t guard him. Good player."
It's fair to question if fatigue played a factor in Saturday's loss. Arkansas is down to seven common rotational players after Adou Thiero hyperextended his knee last Saturday and Boogie Fland underwent thumb surgery on Jan. 22. But injuries aren't the only thing that caused problems for Arkansas' rotation, Calipari said.
"But, you know, when we had the guys, we played better as (the rotation) got shorter," Calipari said. "But now, I’m going to say it again, it’s not only being injured, you can’t have three or four of your seven play poorly and you expect to win. And that may mean, he was 0-for-8, were they open? He had three turnovers, were they necessary?"
That shortened rotation is a byproduct of Calipari's own decision to only take nine primary players in the offseason, and it's a problem he said he's working on constantly.
"I can’t make any trades, I can’t pick up anybody at the wire, this is who it is," Calipari said. "So what we’ve done, how do we make this work? And that’s all I’ve been thinking about. That’s what I’ve been doing all season and now we’ve got two games left. We’re going to be in dogfights both games."
The Razorbacks have just two games left in the regular season, and with Saturday's loss, they just got more important. The next opportunity to bolster their postseason resume will come Tuesday when they face the Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville. Tipoff is set for 9 p.m. CT and the game will air on the SEC Network.
