Is Mike Anderson's improved Arkansas team ready to make noise in March?
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Rashad Madden can easily recall the down times.
"What I remember is, really, losing a lot," said the senior guard, the lone holdover from coach Mike Anderson's first team at Arkansas. "We've been the worst team in the league. We went home on the first day of the (SEC) Tournament."
Sunday afternoon at Bridgestone Arena did not singlehandedly eschew those memories. While Madden spoke of improvement, teammates on both sides spoke of disappointment. Arkansas had just been dropped by undefeated Kentucky, losing 78-63 in the SEC Tournament final -- it was the Razorbacks' second lopsided loss at the hands of the history-chasing Wildcats.
The result could serve as a reminder of how much farther the Razorbacks' program still has to climb: They finished second in league play and second in the tournament setting, but the distance from the top is substantial. Kentucky proved once again that it is simply on another level.
There's another angle, though.
Arkansas is heading to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seven years. It just played for its first conference tournament title game since losing to miracle underdog Georgia in 2008. To downplay the on-court strides the program has made in its fourth season under Anderson just because it became another notch on Kentucky's belt is to miss the larger point. Could the Razorbacks knock off the Wildcats if they received a third chance? Probably not. Should that be the ultimate gauge of progress? Not for Madden & Co. As the senior said, "To even be here on the last day and play for the championship, it means a lot."
When Anderson, a former Nolan Richardson assistant, accepted his former boss's position and returned to Arkansas in March 2011, the move came with a mission statement. The decision to leave his young and talented Missouri team and return home was not easy: "I chose to come and lead the Razorbacks back to the promised land."
Four years later and that promised land is still a speck on the horizon.
But it's closer now than ever before under this regime.
Anderson's rendition of "40 Minutes of Hell" got off to a fast start only in tempo-based terms. From a competitive perspective, it's been slow going in Fayetteville as the 55-year-old has quietly built up the necessary depth and athletic talent needed to compete. Arkansas, once a national powerhouse that reached three Final Fours and captured a national title in the early '90s, is making its first trip to the NCAA Tournament since that '08 season. The school has won just one NCAA tourney game since Richardson retired in 2002.
"It'll almost be like a relief, because last year was heartbreak," junior wing Michael Qualls said of seeing the team's name in the 68-team field. "We watched (the selection show) and our name never showed up."
But the 2015 Razorbacks are not only going dancing, they're positioned to make noise in the process. (Update: Arkansas earned a 5-seed in the NCAA Tournament's West Regional, facing 12-seed Wofford in Jacksonville, Fla.)
Throughout the season, the coaching staff has reminded its players that this is a team built for March. Ten different players average 10 or more minutes played, wave after wave pressing 94 feet. It's the basic Richardson blueprint -- the ultra-talented 1994 title team went 10-deep and cherished bedlam -- and it wasn't immediately replicated. Anderson's first team was inexperienced across the board and struggled to play efficiently at Anderson's pace, losing nine of its final 12 games to miss the tournament. There was improvement in Year 2, particularly on the defensive end, but it wasn't until the 2014 campaign that the Razorbacks truly pushed for at-large inclusion.
They just missed their chance -- thanks, in part, to a first-round SEC Tournament exit at the hands of South Carolina -- but that won't be the case this time. Arkansas is in.
The question now turns to this: How close is Anderson's group to delivering on that proverbial promised land?
Kentucky is, to put it mildly, a poor example when charting Arkansas' March chances. Calipari's group can take any opponent out of its offensive rhythm, and, in turn for Arkansas, that disrupts any full-court defensive tendencies. The nation's No. 1 team will not be awaiting Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament, though. Take away the two Kentucky meetings and four of Arkansas' six losses came by five points or fewer. This is a team that can go nose-to-nose with tourney-caliber opposition.
An interesting thing happened during this semi-breakout season for Anderson's program: it improved dramatically on the offensive end, even overshadowing its defensive exploits over the course of the season.
Entering the SEC Tournament final, Arkansas ranked 23rd in offensive efficiency. While the majority of college basketball went backwards with the archaic rules revisions this season, the Razorbacks have made strides. They play at lightning speed compared to the sport's slow-it-down nature, shoot the ball relatively well, crash the offensive glass and avoid turnovers with the best of teams.
With the return of NBA prospect Bobby Portis, the SEC Player of the Year, Qualls, senior guard Rashad Madden and the rest of Anderson's past three recruiting classes that have rejuvenated the program, they could be a tough out this month.
"We're so much deeper. Our team's just better," Qualls said. "We have winners on our team -- I feel like everybody on our team just wants to win. Everybody. No one's worried about their individual or personal vendettas or whatever. We all worry about worry. That's going to still carry us over in the NCAA Tournament."
Added Portis: "I feel like last year at times our team didn't have togetherness and commitment throughout the whole season. But I feel like this year everyone bought into coach Mike Anderson's system and just tried to make it flow."
The Southeastern Conference is hoping this is the case. The conference has been waiting on Arkansas to return to prominence -- it's interesting that Rick Pitino's Kentucky teams unseated Richardson's Arkansas teams in the '90s, and now Anderson is chasing Calipari's gold standard 20 years later -- and this month would suffice. The SEC placed five teams in the field, but with traditional power Florida missing the tournament Arkansas projects as the league's second-best shot to make a deep run in the tourney.
Last season, despite placing only three teams in the field, the SEC was pound-for-pound the most successful conference around. Tennessee marched from the play-in round into the Sweet 16. No. 1 overall seed Florida made it to the Final Four. Kentucky, an 8-seed, punched the right buttons at the right time and made it to the championship game.
If even a fraction of that conference-wide success is possible this time around, Arkansas needs to be the team Anderson has promised his players they can be. He's told them they are built for March. It's time to see what this four-year project is capable of.
