Cheers To The Hogs

With the win over Tennessee, the Razorback basketball team appears to have gotten positioned to actually make the NCAA Tournament. I confess to being amazed.

It has been good to see them "come on" and have these big victories in the last 3 games. What has happened to bring us beyond "close" and into actually winning?

I think Ole Miss was a gut check time. They had to be embarrassed by losing that game. Especially Townes, who was basically a no show.

Three games ago I would have said that no players other than Steven Hill and Charles Thomas were showing the type of consistent effort required to win. Yes, Brewer and Modica were playing well enough to "get their points" but both would have letdowns at key points that were making a difference. Typically, no one else even really showed up for most of the games

The things that I see that have changed. Townes is playing like a man possessed on the boards. He's looking like Charles Thomas. The Hogs are attacking the basket much more and drawing more fouls. The overall "hustle" level has picked up over a much longer period of the game. The Hogs have gone from playing 15 minutes of good ball a game to playing 30-35 minutes of really good ball.

Ferguson and Thomas' ability to "get their shot" at key points in the game is also helping greatly. Vincent Hunter coming in and giving a huge lift of energy in the paint is also making a big difference.

This is a much better zone defense team than man team. That's okay. They've stepped up the defense over longer stretches of the game.

It is also interesting to me that we've flipped the halves. Now we have our low points in the first half and play much stronger in the second half.

They're still not perfect out there, but perfection is not required to win. 40 minutes of great effort and playing smart will usually get the job done.

Rather than a melt down I believe we've had a great turning point. Now we need to beat Miss. State soundly. A poor performance Wednesday night would be a bad thing.