FAYETTEVILLE -- There's one team on Arkansas' basketball schedule that has won more than 20 games each of the past 10 seasons.
It's not Kentucky or Florida.
Arkansas men vs Akron
WHEN 7 p.m. today
WHERE Walton Arena, Fayetteville
RECORDS Arkansas 1-0, Akron 2-0
SERIES First meeting
RADIO Razorback Sports Network
TELEVISION None
INTERNET SEC Network-plus
TICKETS $30 lower level, $25 upper level
Arkansas is playing Georgia Tech in New York and then will face Villanova or Stanford, but none of those teams has won more than 20 games for 10 consecutive seasons, either.
No way it could be Wake Forest, right? Have the Demon Deacons been consistently good since Tim Duncan left?
It's not Wake Forest.
Dayton?
Guess again, though you're getting warmer thinking of a team from Ohio.
The answer, unlikely as it may sound, is Akron.
The Zips, who play the Razorbacks at 7 tonight in Walton Arena, have averaged 23.3 victories the previous three seasons under Coach Keith Dambrot.
"It'll be a dogfight," Arkansas junior guard Manny Watkins said.
Akron (2-0) returns five players who started at least 10 games from last season's 21-14 team, with 6-11 senior Pat Forsythe, 6-10 junior Kwan Cheatam, 6-7 senior Jake Kretzer, 6-6 senior Reggie McAdams and 5-11 sophomore Antino Jackson.
Josh Willams, a 6-2 freshman, is starting this season for the Zips. He's from Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, where Dambrot coached Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James.
Akron is picked to win the Mid-American Conference East Division title in preseason coaches and media polls.
"We've got a team coming in here that's really, really good," Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson said. "Keith Dambrot does a tremendous job. I've always admired watching his teams from afar.
"Their big guys are really skilled, and they've got some wing guys that can really shoot the basketball."
Anderson said Jackson is a quick point guard who handles the ball well.
"It's going to be a heck of a ballgame," Anderson said. "A big-time challenge for our team with the inexperience that we have."
The lineup Anderson started in the Razorbacks' 86-68 season-opening victory over Southern last Friday night had a combined 13 starts for Arkansas -- nine for senior guard Jabril Durham and four for junior forward Moses Kingsley.
"For the first game, I just give it an OK rating," Anderson said. "I think we've got to play better, especially with Akron coming in here and the teams we're going to get ready to face."
Kingsley had career-highs of 24 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocked shots against Southern. Junior guard Dusty Hannahs, a transfer from Texas Tech, had 21 points, in his Arkansas debut. Senior guard Anthlon Bell had 14 points off the bench, freshman guard Jimmy Whitt had 12 points and Durham had 10 assists.
"Oh yeah, we expect a bigger challenge," Kingsley said of playing the Zips. "They're going to give us a tough time because they know where they're playing at.
"They're playing the tradition of Arkansas Razorbacks basketball. Like Coach said, we have a target on our back after winning 27 games last year.
"Everybody's going to want to take a shot at us."
Arkansas' strategy always is to try to wear down the opponent, but 11 Zips are averaging between 26 and 8 minutes in Akron's victories over Cleveland State 65-53 and NCAA Division III Hiram (Ohio) College 100-30.
"We'll mix and match and just try to create some havoc with our defense," Andersons said.
Arkansas is 40-1 in nonconference games in Walton Arena under Anderson, with the only loss being to No. 6 Syracuse, 91-82, in the 2012-2013 season.
The Zips counted a road victory over an SEC team last season when they beat South Carolina 68-63 in a tournament in Charleston, S.C., where they also beat Southern California 66-46.
"Trust me, they will be fired up to play here," Anderson said. "They want to come in and steal one.
"We've got to somehow match their intensity, their energy and hopefully play good basketball."
Sports on 11/18/2015