Not long ago, Arkansas fans were pumping their chests about the awakening of a "sleeping giant" in the college hoops landscape thanks to three-straight tournament appearances and back-to-back Elite Eight trips.
Juxtapose that to now, a time in which fans are comparing home losses to figure out which is uglier or more embarassing. Well, the final straw may have been picked on Tuesday, as the Razorbacks got out-worked, out-hustled and out-juiced by one of the SEC's worst teams in the Vanderbilt Commodores by a final score of 85-82.
"Yeah, disappointed in our defense, for sure," head coach Eric Musselman said after the game. "In both halves. I thought the game got away from us, kind of in the middle section.
"We did play hard down 15 or 16, whatever it was, and gave ourselves an opportunity to try to put the game into overtime. But 50 points given up, even though we scored 51, defended and fouled too much. Give Vanderbilt credit. They played extremely hard for 40 minutes."
Getting blown out by ranked conference foes at home is one thing, but losing in the Basketball Palace of Mid-America to Vanderbilt — a team that was without a true road win prior to Tuesday's action — is inexcusable and a microcosm of all of Arkansas' issues this year.
With only three games left in the regular season, what's Musselman's solution? According to him, getting back to the drawing board.
"Yeah, I mean, we’ve gotta get ready for Kentucky and then LSU and then Bama," Musselman said. "And whoever else we play. If we have more than that, I don’t know, but we’ve gotta get ready for each and every game. Get back to the drawing board and we’ll start working on Kentucky tonight."
Well, that drawing board has to be paper-thin at this point. Time and time again, the Razorbacks have looked sharp in practice only to come out flat on the court, and that couldn't have been more apparent in the first half.
After reeling off seven-straight points against the Commodores after the opening tip, Arkansas finished the final 12 minutes of the first half with one made field goal. Khalif Battle – the Hogs' leading scorer with 36 points — believed the team needed to "have more juice."
"It sucks but we’ve got to stay positive," Battle said after the game. "We’ve still got basketball left, still got the conference tournament. The work does not stop, we just got to keep on pushing. This one is tough, but there's so many things everybody could have done better, especially including myself.
"I know I could have done way more. That’s the worst part about it, you can never get the time back that’s already gone. Now we've just got to focus on the next task and that’s hard but it's basketball."
What is the next task, exactly? A home game against LSU sandwiched by road matchups against a ranked Kentucky team and Alabama program doesn't shine a massive glimmer of light on the Hogs' prospects to finish strong, but Battle still has some belief that the Razorbacks can figure something out.
"Yeah, I’m still positive," Battle said. "I mean, we have plenty of losses this year. Plenty of ups and downs. But we still have a lot of basketball left. We have a tough stretch, we got to go to Kentucky, get a tough road win but we can still win that game and then the SEC Tournament. We have LSU here. We still have a lot of basketball left."
Arkansas (14-14, 5-10 SEC) will travel to Rupp Arena on Saturday to take on the No. 16 Kentucky Wildcats (20-8, 10-5 SEC). The game is set to tip off at 12:30 p.m. CT and will broadcast on CBS.
