FAYETTEVILLE -- Talking to Eddie Sutton at Thursday night's Arkansas-Kentucky game at Walton Arena, a flood of memories returned of the coach whose 1974-1985 tenure rocketed Arkansas basketball from obscurity to national prominence.
Most memories were great ones. At Arkansas, Sutton fashioned the foundation of his College Basketball Hall of Fame career. He took Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky and his alma mater, Oklahoma State, to 27 NCAA Tournaments and a Final Four each for Arkansas and Oklahoma State.
But coach anywhere long enough and even the great ones coach some clunkers. Sometimes those clunkers come in games their teams want most. Just like the one that Mike Anderson's Razorbacks wanted in Thursday's 80-66 loss to Kentucky, demoralizing a season-high 18,588 at Walton.
Arkansas' Thursday wilting at Walton was reminiscent of a Sutton-era poorly played 71-53 first-round loss to Kansas State in the 1980 NCAA Tournament.
"We played like we were wearing two left shoes," Sutton said back then.
Anderson's Razorbacks moved Thursday as if they were similarly ill-equipped. They ran a half-step slow defending the penetration of Kentucky point guard Tyler Ulis, who had 24 points -- including 14 of 15 free throws -- and dishing 5 assists with only 1 turnover in 38 minutes.
The Hogs were too tardy to the boards, with Kentucky outscoring them 19-8 on second-chance points. And those Arkansas sprees of threes in SEC victories at Walton -- 6 of 14 against Vanderbilt and an incredible 16 of 24 against Mississippi State -- never happened Thursday.
Arkansas connected on only 2 of 12 three-pointers against Kentucky.
You never would have known it, but in Baton Rouge, Arkansas had played to the wire in a woulda, coulda, shoulda 76-74 loss to the same LSU Tigers who in the same place routed Kentucky, 85-67.
"We had an off night," Anderson lamented Thursday. "And that's the wrong night to have an off night."
The SEC schedule gives the Hogs no time to lick their wounds. They play the Georgia Bulldogs tonight in Athens, Ga. Can they regroup this fast on the road?
"We've got to," Anderson said. "We've got no choice."
At least unlike Sutton's 1980 Hogs, these Hogs only wait two days rather than until next season to determine whether their next shoes fit left and right foot.
FAREWELL, JERRY
Condolences to family, friends and fellow colleagues of Jerry L. Reed.
The never-met-a-stranger longtime Arkansas sports desk man and sports writer who worked for the Arkansas Democrat, Northwest Arkansas Times and Morning News, and sports editor in Amarillo, Texas, died Wednesday at 62 at the Veterans Administration hospital in Fayetteville.
Jerry prefaced many columns with "Shake heads and come out thinking."
He leaves all who knew him shaking heads and thinking if only Jerry could have overcome the cigarette addiction that took his breath away.
May Jerry's death inspire others somehow to conquer what he and a multitude gone prematurely before him could not.
Sports on 01/23/2016