Today’s loss was a gut-punch, but don’t think it’s time to panic… yet.

Definitely think the performance against Florida was much better than the showing against Ole Miss. Much more energy, more effort, really solid game from the three bigs in Aidoo, Brazile, and Thiero. Still struggling to shoot/score in conference play.

The more this team plays against competition, the more we find out about them. They won’t be a scoring team in SEC play. They just won’t. But I think they’ve proven they can and will defend.

Probably the biggest takeaway is that the SEC slate started loaded for Arkansas, and unfortunately it means an 0-3 start to conference play. What’s next?

Four consecutive winnable games: @ LSU, @ Missouri, Georgia, and Oklahoma. Still have to show up and perform to win, but all winnable games. And all much worse defenses than the first three games.

Three games against top 25 KenPom defenses, and three losses. Next four games? 60th, 71st, 17th, and 93rd.

Eventually the team has to score, especially against good defensive opponents, and maybe playing against some weaker defenses is a confidence booster that can help with that.

It can’t be overlooked that some of these issues aren’t just the inability to score against good defenses. Players are missing open shots, missing layups (which will mostly be contested regardless of opponent at the collegiate level), and missing free throws. That has to be corrected.

Lose either one of the next two games, panicking is fine and warranted. Don’t think it’s time yet, though. This team will win with defense, but it really has to be able to score at at least an average output to get over the hump. Can they do  that? We shall see!