Mike Anderson certain Arkansas hoops moving in right direction

NWA Democrat-Gazette/Michael Woods HOG LEADERS: Arkansas coach Mike Anderson works with all-Southeastern Conference center Moses Kingsley and the rest of the Razorbacks during preparation for the SEC tournament March 9 in Nashville, Tenn. The Razorbacks' summer consists of school work and practice before an exhibition trip to Spain in August.

— At this point last year, the Arkansas basketball program was mired in controversy.

Razorbacks head coach Mike Anderson’s best two players had left early to declare for the NBA draft, his prized power forward signee didn’t qualify academically and three players had been arrested for off-season arrests. Two were later suspended for a semester, while another was kicked off the team.

It all added up to a 16-16 regular season, just a year after going 27-9, finishing runner-up to Kentucky in both the regular season race and the SEC Tournament, and winning a game in the NCAA Tournament.

Fast forward and you find Arkansas landing a highly-regarded 2016 recruiting class that showed off its talents in a four-game exhibition tour of Spain.

And now the program has more commitments in the next three recruiting classes - each class ranked in the top 10 nationally and all homegrown prospects - than any other team in college basketball.

“I think all that is is a tribute to hard work,” Anderson said. “We laid the groundwork coming in and really getting after it and grinding and maybe it’s an opportunity now for us to receive some of the fruits of that hard work.

“If you are working hard, eventually something good is going to happen so I am just excited. The year we won 27 games, we had momentum and we had a little blip on the screen and now it is time for us to get back on track.

“I am excited about this basketball team. I really, really am. Having the opportunity, and I really want to thank (Arkansas athletics director) Jeff (Long) and the administration for allowing us to really go and get a chance to learn a little bit more about our basketball team.”

The Razorbacks went 3-1 while playing games in Madrid, Albacete and Barcelona, while also visiting Valencia.

They lost the first game and then steamrolled the final three opponents, including a 69-point drubbing of the European Academy in the final contest of the tour.

“I thought they learned from it,” Anderson said of the opening loss. “They got hit in the head. …Team just (gave more effort than) us and we still had a chance with the ball with 30 seconds left and still had a chance to win the game. We put ourselves in a tough position.

“But after that game I thought we responded in the right way and not only that, but I have a better feel now. I was platooning them early on and I didn’t platoon as much later on. I kind of eased them into where I wouldn't have five new guys out there. You got five and then I eased in three and then eased two out there.

“I thought it was a much better transition with those guys and we finished the games off strong.”

Anderson deemed the trip an overall success.

“We talked about getting a snapshot of this team in Spain while visiting Madrid, Valencia as well as Barcelona, that is a trip these guys will remember the rest of their lives,” Anderson said.

“As far as the basketball part of it, it gave me the opportunity of getting those 10 days of working out to kind of a get a semi-semblance of what our team will be."

Anderson said the trip gave him a chance to assess his roster, which includes eight players who have never played for the Razorbacks.

“Coming away from that, I really like this basketball team," Anderson said. "I think it could be a very athletic team, I think it could be a deep team with multiple guys in different positions and I think that is the luxury that we didn’t have last year.

“With the style of play and how we want to play, I think now the part of it is to develop these guys into a unit.

“The opportunity to go and get away and just be around each other, get to know each other and not necessarily on the floor, but off the floor was big."

Anderson said he saw several positives and the team has potential.

“They like one another, I think they are going to play for one another and now our job is to make them become one," Anderson said.

Arkansas will soon start individual workouts and then conditioning before likely opening up official practice early in October.

“I think they will go into weight room and work extremely hard,” Anderson said. “They know it is not easy winning at this level. In order for us to win at the high level we want to win at, we have to have everybody giving everything they’ve got.”