FAYETTEVILLE — If the Arkansas Razorbacks thought Dana Altman was vanilla, John Pelphrey must have seemed like rainbow sherbet when he addressed the team before being announced as the school’s newest men’s basketball coach Monday.

“He was cursing as soon as he came through the door and we were like, ‘Man, he’s serious about being here.’ He came in with some fire,” Arkansas swingman Sonny Weems said of Pelphrey, who was decidedly more enthusiastic than Altman was a week ago when he accepted the job only to give it back a day later.

Weems said Pelphrey’s bits of blue language weren’t overthe-top, but included comments about rekindling Nolan Richardson’s “40 Minutes of Hell” style and other choice words designed to grab the Razorbacks’ attention.

Like Altman, Pelphrey also drew applause from fans who attended the announcement at Walton Arena when he talked about his preferred style of “constantly attacking, both offensively and defensively.” “It’s my personality,” Pelphrey said. “It’s the way I believe the game should be played.” Unlike Altman, Pelphrey didn’t stop there. Instead, he went into more colorful detail about the manner in which he hopes to return Arkansas to the heyday it enjoyed under Richardson, a time when Pelphrey was starring at Kentucky.

“We don’t want to let our opponents do what they do every day in practice,” Pelphrey said. “We want to make them feel uncomfortable. It’s a mother-inlaw defense — constant pressure and harassment.” Offensively, Pelphrey said he favors a fast-paced attack that balances an affinity for the three-point shot with getting the best shot available and above all, valuing the basketball. Pelphrey seemed to direct his comments about offensive philosophy as much to the players seated in the front row at the news conference as the fans behind them.

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“If we’re going to press and run and force 20-plus turnovers a game, fellas, it’s going to do us no good if we turn it over 20 times a game,” Pelphrey said. “We want to take advantage of the three-point line, but we also want to understand that the easiest shots to make are the ones you get close to the basket. That’s just the way it is. The closer you are, the more you make.” If those principles sounded familiar to the Razorbacks or their fans, it might be because Pelphrey learned them first as a player under Rick Pitino and later as an assistant coach to Billy Donovan at Marshall and Florida. Pelphrey has employed a similar style at South Alabama over the past five seasons.

Last season, when South Alabama finished 20-12, the Jaguars led the Sun Belt Conference in turnover margin (plus-2. 53 ), assist-to-turnover ratio (1. 12: 1 ), and three-point percentage defense (32. 5 ).

South Alabama also ranked second in scoring defense (67. 3 points per game ) and steals (7. 22 ), while ranking third in assists (13. 78 ) and made threepointers (8. 5 ).

The Jaguars were led by the guard combination of Demetric Bennett, 6-4, and Daon Merritt, 5-10. Bennett ranked among the league’s top 15 in scoring, rebounding, steals, three-point percentage and three-pointers made, while Merritt was among the top 11 in assists, free-throw percentage and assist-to-turnover ratio.

“We’re going to play extremely hard, we’re going to give maximum effort, and we’ll work with every ounce of perspiration in our body to make this university proud,” Pelphrey said.

Point guard Gary Ervin said Pelphrey’s talk of “up-tempo, pressing, getting into the passing lanes, just being aggressive” was well-received.

“That’s something we’ve been waiting to do,” Ervin said.

The NCAA allows individual player workouts during the spring semester, so Pelphrey will begin to see how his philosophies mesh with his inherited personnel almost immediately. But the first order of business, Pelphrey said, is getting the Razorbacks in shape physically and mentally.

“We’ve got to get ourselves in great physical shape so that we’re not worrying about our next breath... and we’ve got to learn to serve each other, be unselfish,” Pelphrey said. “This is a team game. This is not tennis; this is not golf.

“ Nobody really cares 10 years from now what your individual accolades were.... All they want to know is, ‘Did you win ?’” Under Pelphrey, though, it appears Arkansas will try to win with at least a little bit of flavor.