Some random thoughts while watching Arkansas pull off its most lopsided Southeastern Conference road win ever, 94-61:
• What the heck? While not expecting much from Missouri, the Tigers delivered even less. Kim Anderson is in just his second year as the head coach, and it was first thought that if there is a light at the end of the tunnel it might be a train. Turns out it was the NCAA.
Mike Anderson left the Missouri program in great shape with six players returning for their senior season. Frank Haith wandered in from Miami in 2011, just in front of the NCAA posse, and won 30 games in his first season.
A familiar move apparently. On Wednesday, Missouri announced it was banning its basketball program from postseason play this year and vacating all 23 wins from the 2013-14 season.
The NCAA is still investigating, and Missouri said it was working with the organization in hopes of limiting the punishment to its self-imposed sanctions.
In Haith's first season, with mostly an inherited team, he was named United States Basketball Writers Association Coach of the Year. The Tigers were a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament but promptly lost to Norfolk State.
Missouri joined the SEC for the 2012-13 season, and the Tigers finished fifth, again losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The next year, they were sixth in the SEC and lost in the second round of the NIT.
Within a month, Haith announced he was going to Tulsa, which raised a few eyebrows because it was a reverse move of how coaches land bigger jobs. He left behind, apparently without regrets, a shambles of a basketball program Kim Anderson, a former player and assistant coach for the Tigers, is trying to fix. It will take longer than expected.
No wonder Tigers Nation dislikes Haith more than it did Mike Anderson for leaving for the Arkansas job.
• Mike Anderson was able to substitute openly and without concern Tuesday night. Moses Kingsley played the most minutes of any starter, 29, and the next was Anton Beard with 24. That and with an extra day to prepare for LSU, the Hogs should have plenty of legs in Baton Rouge on Saturday night.
• During the broadcast, Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long was interviewed courtside, sitting next to John Pelphrey, who he fired as basketball coach in 2011. It seemed awkward but everyone was professional. Long officially stepped down as chairman of the College Football Playoff selection committee, and that was big news all day Tuesday.
However, Long had casually said in a radio interview a week earlier on Overtime with Matt Jones and Trey Schaap on KABZ-FM, 103.7 The Buzz that it was going to be his last year as chairman, but he would remain on the committee until his appointment is up in two years.
• The past couple of seasons, the three-point shot was not always the Hogs friend, especially on the road.
Led by Dusty Hannahs, the Razorbacks made 8 of 15 three-pointers against Missouri. Hannahs was 4 of 5 after going 8 of 13 against Vanderbilt.
Hannahs was named after Dusty Baker, the new manager of the Washington Nationals, who was a teammate of Hannahs' dad, Gerald, with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
• The three-point shooting and the play of Kingsley in the paint have taken some of the focus off the Razorbacks defense, which can still be suffocating when Anderson calls for them to turn up the heat. Kingsley's shot-blocking skills add another dimension. He has improved leaps and bounds in one year.
• It was a team win. The Hogs had five players score more than 10 points, and 10 guys played more than 10 minutes. It is beginning to look like the tougher-than-usual nonconference schedule has prepared the Razorbacks for SEC play.
Sports on 01/14/2016