The Curious Case of Mason Jones

The only tournament they are making is the SEC tournament.

He has been fairly inconsistent throughout the year. Before the 30 point game against Florida, he only had 9 against A&M and I believe all of them were in the 2nd half. He has 9 games in which he shot below 40% and 7 games in which he shot 50% or above.

The thing I worry about is him not being aggressive enough on the offensive side of the ball. He sometimes falls in love with shooting 3's when we really need him to drive because we don't have many players that can do it. Need him to get to the line more often because he can actually make his FTs.

Yes. Hopefully Mike Anderson is in his ear about this. I mean, missing wide open layups may be a part of his willingness to launch 3 pointers all night, but the best way to get yourself out of a slump on the court is to attack the rim and get to the foul line. That's the traditional wisdom anyways. The game is a little different these days. Steph Curry has taught all these youngins that you can always just shoot the step-back 3 all night long.

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We are gonna need both of those guys to play some good ball if this team is gonna make the tournament.

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Based on the numbers, looks like we would need to reach 20 wins before the SEC tournament and would still need another win in the tournament. Basically means we need to win 10 of the next 14 games.

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We need to knock off Kentucky in Rupp.

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It's happened before.

Mason Jones is un athletic as hell. I don't even think he can dunk. Pretty smart basketball player, but he's limited in what he can do. As a fan you have to hope he's knocking down jumpers because he's not going to get you many points inside.

That last post got me thinking about different roles on the team. Here's how I see the breakdown.

Best player: Mason Jones
Best offensive player: 1a Mason Jones, 1b Daniel Gafford, 1c Isaiah Joe

X Factor: Isaiah Joe/Reggie Chaney

Best defender: Gabe Osabaouein with Reggie Chaney close on his heels

I'm becoming more and more impressed with Jalen Harris. He is developing a jumper. If he can become a legitimate outside shooting threat, the offense will start humming along quickly.

ETA: I liked that 4 guard lineup Mike threw out there last night. Especially if you think Harris can knock down the deep ball. Arkansas has good length at the guard position and if they can confidently run a 4 guard lineup, their press defense is gonna start feasting on teams.

As we saw with Missouri last night. 24 forced turnovers.

I think I heard that they were averaging 12 a game. If that's true, it isn't good, but we doubled them up.

Missouri isn't a great team, but they do do two things well. They shoot the 3 very well and they actually play tough defense themselves. It was good to see Arkansas win the turnover battle in that game. Our guys had been pretty careless with the ball themselves over the last few games.

Overall I didn't see any improvement last night, per se, but I did see a team find confidence that had been lacking since conference play began. Let's see how quickly they progress from here. I'm guessing they're gonna get better pretty quick.

I'll take Arkansas on the road this weekend over Tech.

The legendary Chris Beard has lost three in a row.