Razorbacks searching for first road win at South Carolina
The Arkansas Razorbacks (15-7, 4-5) will continue their quest for a road victory when they take on the South Carolina Gamecocks (8-14, 1-8) on Saturday inside Colonial Life Arena in Columbia.
While the Hogs are 0-5 on the road this season, the Gamecocks are 0-5 at home in SEC play. Although every conference matchup has it's own tests, this one seems as good of an opportunity as any for the Hogs to get a road win.
"We’re one play away from winning at LSU," head coach Eric Musselman said. "We’re one play away from winning at Missouri. We’re one play away from winning at Baylor.
"So I wouldn’t say we’ve played bad basketball on the road. I would just say we’ve been unfortunate in three games not to catch a break, and obviously we need to try to create one more possession on the road than what we had in those three games."
The four conference road losses in a row are the most Arkansas has had to start SEC play under Musselman. Like he said, though, two of them came by a three-point margin and the fifth road loss (Saturday at Baylor) was also a three-point loss.
Fortunately for Musselman and his squad, they have won three-straight conference games entering the month of February — a month in which Arkansas is 13-1 in over the past two seasons.
Even with the success his team has seen in February over the past two seasons, Musselman is just focusing on how tough the schedule is this year.
"This is a really, really challenging (schedule)," Musselman said. "Some of the teams that maybe you would hope to play twice, we're not getting that opportunity this year. We're playing a lot of teams right now that are really, really good basketball teams. And any time you play on the road is extremely difficult in this league."
South Carolina has lost eight of its nine conference games so far, and all but two of those came by a double-digit margin. Still, Arkansas is not overlooking how tough it is to play in the SEC.
"Any game in the SEC is tough, but especially if it's a road game," freshman Anthony Black said. "We just have to be focused on ourselves, play as good as we can play and come out with a win. We can't get too caught up in who we are playing against. We just have to focus and do whatever it takes to win a road game, which we haven't done yet."
Arkansas' adjusted offensive (62nd) and defensive (12th) efficiency rankings are both very respectable, while the Gamecocks' offensive (253rd) and defensive (245th) efficiency rankings are near the bottom of the nation. KenPom projects this game to be a 14-point margin of victory for the Razorbacks.
Everything points to an Arkansas victory, but that's never a guarantee, especially when a team is desperately looking for a win.
"They’re desperate to win at home, we’re desperate to win on the road," Musselman said. "It’s a team that beat Clemson, who has been a ranked team. It’s a team that beat Kentucky."
The Razorbacks and South Carolina will tip off at 2:30 p.m. CT Saturday, and the game will be televised on the SEC Network.