Hog calls

Hogs aren't about to push panic button

Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson calls out a play during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Clemson, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014, in Clemson, S.C.(AP Photo/Richard Shiro)
Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson calls out a play during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Clemson, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014, in Clemson, S.C.(AP Photo/Richard Shiro)

FAYETTEVILLE -- Fortunately for Mike Anderson, the basketball season is a long season.

It's long enough that many Arkansas Razorbacks fans already have forgotten the promise their Hogs exhibited in a 6-0 start, which included routing traditional ACC power Wake Forest by 30 and winning at preseason No. 22 SMU while Arkansas zoomed from unranked to 18th in The Associated Press Top 25 poll.

All that sunshine has been clouded since Thursday. First the Hogs were blown out, 95-77, by the Iowa State Cyclones in Ames, Iowa. Then they blew a six-point lead in the final minute of regulation Sunday, eventually losing 68-65 in overtime to the Clemson Tigers in Clemson, S.C.

So there is cause for alarm for an Arkansas program that hasn't reached the NCAA Tournament since 2008.

Especially with the Clemson game.

Iowa State, a NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 team last season currently ranked 14th by The Associated Press, can and has blown out many a good opponent in Ames.

But this Clemson team, even with a victory over LSU, is not a team the basketball proud ACC brags about. Clemson has lost to Winthrop and Gardner-Webb.

Of course, the current two-game tailspin can be corrected and long forgotten by March when the Big Dance invitations are proffered.

Anderson, Arkansas' fourth-year coach, has cleaned up the off-the-court debris he inherited from the John Pelphrey regime and recruited a team capable of not only getting into the NCAA Tournament but advancing in it. However, capable of achieving and actually achieving don't necessarily coincide.

The Hogs get a big opportunity Saturday to prove they can play effectively aggressive defense, which they didn't play in Ames, and take care of the basketball, which they certainly didn't do at Clemson. The Hogs turned over the game to Clemson by turning it over on their final three possessions in regulation.

Arkansas plays Dayton at 1 p.m. Saturday at Walton Arena against the Dayton Flyers, the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight team last season that was 6-1 and receiving votes in the AP Top 25 going into Tuesday night's game against Bowling Green.

Anderson's men tumbled out of this week's Top 25, as did Arkansas' women's team that was formerly ranked No. 25.

The Arkansas women lost a nine-point lead in the last 21 seconds of regulation to South Dakota State on Thursday at Walton Arena, and eventually lost the game 80-75 in overtime.

A simply better 17th-ranked Rutgers squad beat Arkansas 64-52 Sunday in Fayetteville.

Arkansas' women's team visits Missouri State tonight in Springfield.

LOATHING LONGHORNS

Arkansas senior offensive tackle Brey Cook, a co-captain and graduate of Springdale Har-Ber, may have been born after the Razorbacks' last Southwest Conference football game with Texas in 1991, but he can't remember not loathing the Longhorns.

Now he will get a chance to play against Texas on Dec. 29 in the Texas Bowl at Houston.

"The two teams you didn't like growing up were LSU and Texas," Cook said Monday. "You really didn't know why, but they were just the bad guys."

Sports on 12/10/2014

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