I’ve always admired and appreciated Razorback basketball head coach Mike Anderson. I believe he’s a fine man who also has repeatedly proven himself to be top-flight in his abilities as a coach, even though his hair has got to be turning increasingly gray with each overtime game and so many road losses.

That’s why I (and others) remain mystified that his players cannot seem to rise to the occasion of being winners when playing the game on the road. I mean, those of us who saw the film Hoosiers clearly watched Gene Hackman explain to his heavily underdog players before the state championship game in an imposing, unfamiliar arena that the court and the basket have the same dimensions in every arena whether it be in tiny Milan, Ind., or intimidating Indianapolis-15 feet from the free-throw line and 10 feet up.

We’ve certainly watched other teams (even of lesser abilities) arrive in our basketball palace of the Midwest to strut away in victory. Yet we somehow inevitably find some way to defeat ourselves when we are inside their arenas, even when leading near the end of games. Either we take bad shots, can’t shoot free throws, make silly turnovers, needless fouls, or forget how to rebound off their backboards. It saddens many Arkansans and it’s downright astounding to me that out of the past 23 road games, we have won only two.

Considering this year’s team was capable of downing mighty Kentucky in Bud Walton, the problem doesn’t seem to be lack of ability. Perhaps the larger problem lies in heads and hearts rather than arms and legs.

I don’t know if our Hogs of late develop a defeatist attitude on the road where they oddly convince themselves we can’t possibly win anywhere but in the confines of Bud Walton Arena. Perhaps they somehow forget every effective technique Anderson has spent months drilling into them.

Maybe the answer is that we just don’t have the skilled athletes and skilled enough players with sufficient mental toughness to earn victories any place but on their own playground. Yet there was that stirring Kentucky victory at home last week … I honestly don’t know where the problem lies.

Yet there’s clearly something amiss when it comes to Razorbacks outplaying teams in arenas elsewhere. It was evident yet again when the 12-6 Razorbacks yet again lost a lead with minutes remaining and fell 81-74 at Tennessee (also 12-6). Yet again, the Hogs were beaten by a team with an equally mediocre record.

Over in Georgia several days earlier, the Razorbacks got whipped, well, like pancake batter on the boards by more than 20 rebounds. Is that even possible? Is that kind of beating due to lack of mental toughness and perhaps a shortage of will power, courage or determination? Well, it happened, now almost predictably, just like Groundhog Day rolls around each year.

Georgia outscored the Hogs by 16 points at the free-throw line as Arkansas connected on just 60 percent. Free throws (and the head game they present each player) have long been a pet peeve of mine at the major college level, considering it’s exactly the same unobstructed shot these players each had back in elementary school. As I’ve written previously, if one of my Division I SEC players couldn’t consistently, almost automatically, make seven out of 10 from the line, he’d be living on a cot in a corner of the gym until he could.

It certainly didn’t bode well that the Razorbacks, up by seven points over Georgia with under 16 minutes to play, watched their lead evaporate because the team went one time-consuming stretch after another without once putting the ball into the basket. It’s hard to believe they went nearly seven minutes at one point without scoring a single point.

Anderson, who had to be the most frustrated person of all by seemingly endless road losses to relatively mediocre teams, was quoted at the Georgia overtime loss saying: “We had some guys that were out there tired that had helped us get a lead and then we brought some guys in. It seemed like we just started, to me, we just passed the ball around the horn and we settled for jump shots.”

I suspect that settling for a hopefully heroic jump shot is probably not the team approach this coach has been preaching over months of practices.

The bottom line for me: Here we once-Top 10 Hogs are again this season singing the same ol’ woeful road ballads as in years past. We apparently just do not have the horsepower to get the job done anywhere but in the cozy safeness of home.

Is it fear among the players? A lack of rebounding and free-throw shooting know-how? A lack of confidence or mental toughness? Bad judgment on the court? A lack of team basketball savvy? I don’t know.

But it sure is mighty frustrating for everyone involved when any of our teams earn leads in games away from Bud Walton yet find ways to beat themselves in the closing minutes.

And that’s the become the same ol’ shame of recent years. Whooo pigs and may God grant you enormous quantities of continued patience, Mike Anderson.

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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial, Pages 17 on 01/25/2014