The Benton Courier

Dance Over

Huskies hammer Hogs in Sweet 16 matchup

By Otis Kirk

LAS VEGAS – UConn never trailed against

Arkansas and took a dominating 88-65 victory eliminating the Hogs from the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night in Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.

Arkansas (22-14) advanced to the Sweet 16 for the third season in a row under Eric Musselman, but unlike the past two tournaments they won’t be going to the Elite 8. The Huskies are the No. 4 seed in the West Regional while Arkansas was No. 8.

“I just give UConn, I think our whole team – I’m speaking for all the players and coaches, give UConn a ton of credit,” Musselman said. “I thought from the opening tip they came out with a great sense of urgency. They cut hard. They crashed the offensive boards, especially early in the game.

“They did a great job rebounding the ball for the entire 40 minutes. And uncharacteristically we did not defend at the level that we have for most of the year.”

Arkansas trailed 46-29 at intermission thanks to a 14-0 run in the first half that broke open a close game at that point. The run pushed UConn to a 34-17 lead. The Razorbacks needed to come out hot in the second half. Instead, UConn outscored the Hogs 16-4 to start the second half taking a 62-33 lead with 15:44 remaining in the mismatch.

“I think, first of all, it’s really hard to make the NCAA Tournament,” Musselman said. “It’s really difficult to be one of the teams that plays their way into the tournament and then it’s really difficult to win a game. Really proud of

the way that we positioned ourselves nonconference. It started then by playing really well nonconference.

“And then obviously the way that we played the first two games in this tournament, we played phenomenal. And (Thursday) we ran into a team that passed the

ball really well and shared it. But there’s a lot of great things going on at Arkansas, and proud of these three guys as well as everybody in our locker room. Because, again, there’s not a lot of teams that have been to three straight Sweet 16s in the entire country, and we are one of them. So we’re really proud of that. The culture is strong. And as a staff, we’ll start working towards next year as soon as we get

back to the hotel.”

Anthony Black played a very good game for Arkansas. He finished with 20 points, four rebounds, one assist and five steals.

“They were pretty long and athletic, physical team,” Black said. “So you know, it’s the tournament. And they’re going to let you play. So when you play against teams that are super athletic and strong and physical, it’s always a little bit harder

to score. But they just … I guess they just had a pretty good game plan for us on defense. We took some looks that we usually take and we’ll take again if we get the chance, and just some of it just didn’t fall. But they’re a great defensive team.”

Arkansas also got good performances from Ricky Council IV and Nick Smith

Jr. Council added 17 points while Smith had 11 points.

SPORTS

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2023-03-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://bentoncourier.pressreader.com/article/281642489422928

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