Arkansas guard Rotnei Clarke’s red-hot shooting down the stretch lifted the Razorbacks to a pretty impressive 66-62 win against Missouri State in Bud Walton Arena tonight. Did it also set off the fire alarm during John Pelphrey’s postgame press conference?
We may never know the answer to that, but what a way to cap a wild night. Not long after the Razorbacks recorded their best win of the season against a team that had been 10-0, the fire alarm went off in Bud Walton Arena. Those that remained in the building were forced to evacuate to the parking lot before it was determined to be a false alarm.
Arkansas’ effort was pretty impressive tonight and one of the things that stood out to Pelphrey after the game. He said his team went toe-to-toe with the Bears and seemed to have an answer each time Missouri State appeared to grab momentum. The defensive effort wasn’t perfect by any means. The offense was sloppy on several possessions. Turnovers were a problem. So were second-chance points.
But Pelphrey and the Razorbacks feel pretty good about what they accomplished to get that win.
Pelphrey ended up finishing his press conference in the parking lot with the media. He covered a handful of topics.
• Pelphrey said Sunday that Missouri State was an outstanding team. Pelphrey said he wasn’t kidding Tuesday night. “You look and there are no weaknesses. They outrebound every opponent, take care of the basketball at a high level and play a large number of guys. They’re very good defensively both from the field and 3-point line. As a team they’re tremendous at the free-throw line. When you play Missouri State it’s going to be a hard-fought game to the end.”
• Pelphrey said the Razorbacks didn’t win this game by playing their best basketball. He said it’s clear that improvements must be made before they face Baylor, UAB and Texas after Christmas: “We’re very happy to be 7-5 and have a chance to get a few days off here. When we come back we’ve got a lot more teams coming in here that are very good. We understand who we are and understand this was a good win tonight, but we’ve got to get better because tonight we didn’t win because we played so well, we won because of how hard those guys competed. They refused to stop and they refused to be knocked out.”
• What more can be said about Clarke? The guard scored the final 12 points and finished with 19. “They did a great job of defending him and staying with him. I thought they did a very good job and it was hard for us to get him any shots – we got a couple in transition. The thing about a great shooter is it doesn’t take them very long to impact a game. Somebody said he got the last 12 points and a couple of them were in transition – a great ball fake and a big time shot there at the end. He went back and got a rebound there to ice the game and they fouled him on that. It was good for him to keep playing because it’s not always easy. He’s just got to keep going and keep going because there are a lot of good teams, a lot of good players, a lot of good coaches and the one thing they’re going to try to do is not let him shoot.”
• Pelphrey was also complimentary of Bryant, whose contributions were huge one game after being limited to three minutes of action. Bryant finished with 5 points, 11 rebounds, 2 blocks and one steal. He single-handedly steadied a shaky defense in the first half. “I’m very proud of Glenn. Somebody asked me after the game the other day about him playing only three minutes, but he was cheering as hard as he could on the sideline. I said with that attitude you’ve got a chance to be a good player. Tonight his opportunity came and it came early in the game, and it came late in the game and he was ready to go. I thought he competed and played harder than he had been. We don’t win without him.”
• Pelphrey said there is no change to the status of point guard Courtney Fortson. It’s not clear what that means for the Razorbacks’ next game against Baylor on Dec. 30. We’ll keep you updated on what we know.
