Hog Calls

Anderson, Hogs have come long way

Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson looks on after calling a timeout during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Missouri on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015, in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson looks on after calling a timeout during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Missouri on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015, in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)

FAYETTEVILLE -- While sorting out what his Arkansas Razorbacks didn't do, it took the plane ride home and a text message for Mike Anderson to appreciate what they did.

That included appreciating those who couldn't be there to do it yet contributed to what was done.

What his Razorbacks hadn't done in the SEC Tournament championship game Sunday in Nashville, Tenn., has been done by none this season. They didn't beat Kentucky. The unbeaten, nationally No. 1, SEC champion Wildcats won handily again. This time 78-63 after another 84-67 victory over Arkansas on Feb. 28 in Lexington, Ky.

Despite Sunday's score, his Hogs played Kentucky far more competitively than the first time they met. Enough that Anderson still wrestled with the brief grief of losing one before moving on to the next.

The next, he knew from the watch party before flying home, would be his first NCAA Tournament in his fourth season of rebuilding the Razorbacks, who had fallen on many years of hard times since he was an assistant on Nolan Richardson's championship staffs.

"We do the watch party," Anderson said of the Razorbacks (26-8) seeing their name called as the fifth-seed in the West Regional and learning that they would play 12th-seeded Wofford on Thursday night in Jacksonville, Fla. "Our guys are excited but still, in my mind, I am thinking about what took place [against Kentucky]. But as we flew home and I got a chance to reflect, we were playing the best team in the country and we finished right behind them in the conference race and we finished second in the tournament.

"I had to take a moment to tell those guys that I am so proud of what you guys have done."

It's not just the guys there -- Bobby Portis, Michael Qualls, Anton Beard, etc. -- who did it.

"I got a text from Coty Clarke," Anderson said of the former junior college transfer forward that Anderson signed after his first season at Arkansas. "He is playing overseas. He said, 'Congratulations, Coach on the seed and going to the tournament.' My text to him was, 'Thanks, you set the foundation. Your team set the foundation.' "

Last season's 22-12 Hogs broke the postseason barrier by playing two rounds into the NIT. They did it with Clarke plus inherited John Pelphrey era players like Kikko Haydar, Mardracus Wade and Rickey Scott contributing tangibly and intangibly. Arkansas still has one Pelphrey signee, senior Ky Madden, contributing immensely as a team captain and starting guard.

Anderson ruefully remembered wondering if he could fit into his plans what he inherited from Pelphrey, just as he remembered Nolan Richardson wondering how he could fit what he inherited from Eddie Sutton into his plans. Sutton also had fretted fitting the players inherited from Lanny Van Eman into his system.

"From Day One I said we've got to work with what we've got until we get what we want," Anderson said.

Knowing those recollections by Sutton, Richardson and Anderson and their appreciation of those inherited who stuck it out and bought into setting the table for greatness to follow, they will always want some of those they got.

Sports on 03/18/2015

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