FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas coach Eric Musselman made a number of points in his postgame press conference breaking down the Razorbacks’ poor performance Saturday in their 81-68 loss to No. 12 Missouri.
Among them was that his team has struggled to score at the rim throughout the 2020-21 season. Against the Tigers, it was almost as if there were a lid on the basket for much of the game.
The Razorbacks converted only 8 of 30 layup attempts, according to Arkansas’ StatBroadcast system.
“I’ve never in my entire coaching career seen so many missed layups,” said Musselman, who was ejected after receiving two technical fouls in the second half. “Give (Missouri) Coach (Cuonzo) Martin and his team a tremendous amount of credit. He’s always had great defensive teams. He’s always had great, physical defensive teams.
“Having said that, we missed a great number of point-blank layups. We have to be physical around the rim.”
Desi Sills, who entered Saturday on the best scoring tear of his career averaging 18.5 points over the last four games, was 1 of 5 on layups; Moses Moody was 0 of 4; Davonte Davis 2 of 5; Connor Vanover 0 of 5; JD Notae 4 of 10; and Jaylin Williams made his lone layup attempt.
Saturday marked the seventh time in 10 games the Razorbacks failed to make at least half of their layups. Arkansas is a combined 11 of 37 on layups in its first two SEC games.
“That’s about probably about five more than I thought we were,” Musselman said. “(Missouri forward Jeremiah) Tilmon is a big body in there. He played phenomenal, no question.
“To my knowledge, they had one blocked shot. Again, I don’t have all the stats in front of me, but to my knowledge there was one shot blocked. So, tip our hats to Missouri. Coach Martin did a great job defensively.”
The Tigers did finish with one blocked shot in their seventh win of the season, and it was credited to Dru Smith, his first in four games and fifth of the season.
When asked about the team’s interior issues, Moody pointed to the physicality of the game. He added both teams played through numerous no-calls from the officiating crew, too.
“Some of those could have been called one way or another, but at the end of the day we've got to finish through contact,” said Moody, who recorded his first career double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds. “That's another thing that we need to focus on to be ready to perfect next game."
Arkansas’ inability to convert close in led to its worst field goal percentage of the season at 26.8%. According to HogStats.com, it is the program’s third-lowest in an SEC game and lowest in a game in Bud Walton Arena.
The Razorbacks’ previous worst shooting percentage in Bud Walton Arena was 30% vs. Western Carolina in 2003 and vs. Florida in January 2019.
It all led to the second-worst offensive efficiency rating of Musselman’s 42-game tenure at Arkansas (84.6).
The Razorbacks played without graduate-transfer forward Justin Smith on Saturday and will for 3 to 6 weeks after he underwent arthroscopic debridement surgery on his injured right ankle on Friday. Asked if he was confident Arkansas could begin to figure things out soon, Musselman said he was “overly concerned” at the moment.
“I don’t feel any different last year when Isaiah (Joe) went down than right now,” he added. “My confidence is even a little different than it was coming into the basketball game. Certainly, we couldn’t score, couldn’t get open, couldn’t finish at the rim, we couldn’t rebound, we couldn’t defend. People saw the game. Everybody wants an opportunity, everybody thinks they’re real good, so go do something. We shot 26% from the field.
“I’ve got to get better. That’s what we’ll start doing to get ready for Tennessee.”