Thunder Good-Oil
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The one thing I have noticed about Arkansas is that in their OOC schedule they've played 4 tough opponents and lost 3 of those games. The rest of their OOC schedule was a collection of bottom dwellers.
To contrast, our OOC schedule featured 5 tough games and we lost only 2 of the 5. Based on that, I think our chances may be better than many would think.
To be clear, I do have this as a loss in my preseason predictions. At the moment, I'm sticking with that prediction but I think this game will be a lot closer than the odds makers will project.
Preseason I had this as a close loss. After finishing the OOC as well as we did and having watched the piggies a couple of times, I think we can beat them if we can slow them down and make them play against our half court defense for long periods. Frustrate them and we can win. Get in a sprint contest and it's all piggies.
Can't get into a track meet with Arkansas.
100% agree. I think it might be key to the game. Can't afford to turn the ball over against them and don't want to get sloppy trying to play up tempo. It's going to be tough to win on the road to a good, veteran team, but I actually really like how we match up against Arkansas and feel like we're going to keep this very close. I hope there's also some revenge factor. The way we lost to them last year at home really stings.
I haven't paid as much attention to Barnes press conferences, but has anyone else heard how le likes to play uptempo? I just don't see it w this team yet..
I think the lineup w Daniel and Bone in at the same time can be effective against Arkansas. Which I hope would mean less of Turner in this one. He stunk against them last year and I feel like we can't afford the turnovers.
Arkansas has two 6'3" guards that lead them in scoring. Turner is going to be needed. All 5 guards plus Schofield are going to have to play very well.