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Little Rock @ Arkansas Preview
Opponent: Little Rock Trojans
Date: Saturday, December 4, 2021
Time: 3:00PM CDT
Place: Bud Walton Arena, Fayetteville, Arkansas
TV/Streaming: SEC Network
All-Time Series: First Matchup
The Trojans (4-4)
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Little Rock comes in to today’s game really beat up. They haven’t played a home game since November 14th. They have made trip to Loyola Marymount, Jacksonville, FL(neutral site games), Tulsa, and Colorado St. The Trojans have 11 players averaging 15 minutes or more per game. That’s a result of injuries and blowouts. Little Rock has been familiar with both.
In today’s game, leading scorer Nikola Maric and starting forward Deantoni Gordon are not expected to play. The loss of Maric is very significant. The big man does everything for the Trojans. He leads the team in points, rebound, assists, and blocks. The only remaining player with size for the Trojans is Admir Besovic. The 7-footer is who I would expect to see starting today.
Former Hog, now LR head coach Darrell Walker will need outstanding performances from Isaiah Palermo and Jovan Stulic. They are both double-digit scorers, but they’ll need to be even better.
Like Central Arkansas, Little Rock likes to run. This should be another fast paced game which plays to Arkansas advantage
The Razorbacks (7-0)
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Arkansas had another lackluster half of basketball on Wednesday night. This is starting to become normal for this team. They’ll play great for 1 half and bad the next.
The team struggled guarding the 3-point line yet again against UCA. Little Rock is a very poor shooting team. They rank 288th in 3 point percentage and 316 in made threes per game. So maybe the Hogs can get back on track against them.
One key for the Hogs will be taking care of the basketball. LR forces 17.1 per game. Arkansas needs to stay under 10.
It’s hard to accept the this Arkansas team is so poor shooting from deep. It doesn’t seem possible, but here we are. They rank 310th in 3 point percentage. Just 28.8%.
It’s concerning.
The Hogs have got to be better. There is plenty of time to get it right, but at some point, you are who you are.
Arkansas should dominate the boards again today and the chaotic pace will only play to their advantage. It should look a lot like the UCA game. The Hogs will get a lot of layups and dunks today.
Little Rock isn’t a great team by any means and they aren’t at full strength. Hogs in a route.