Hog Calls : Razorback basketball game perfect script for young team
Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008
FAYETTEVILLE — Turns out Arkansas ’ overtime victory was so unscripted it followed the script a coach would write for a young team in its season opener.
All that really dawned on John Pelphrey as his night postgame press conference got later from his Razorbacks, 91-87 season-opening, overtime victory over Southeast Louisiana last Friday night at Walton Arena.
“ I can’t sit here, ” Pelphrey said early postgame, “ and tell you that we had it scripted the way it was supposed to go. The only good thing I can tell you when I look back on it is the outcome of the game. ”
However the longer Pelphrey talked, the more positives the coach could find straight from the heart.
“ I really didn’t know what type of heart we would have, ” Pelphrey said. “ I thought that’s why we won. Guys just kept playing. ”
The young Hogs, they have no seniors and return only three players with scholarship game experience from last season, trailed, 74-66 with 3: 20 left in regulation. They clawed back to send it to 77-77 overtime on freshman point guard Courtney Fortson’s drive to the bucket with 8. 7 seconds left, trailed twice in overtime, and didn’t totally seal it until Fortson sank one of two free throws in the game’s final second.
Along the way, they missed a brickyard of first-half free throws and made enough mistakes against Southeast Louisiana’s savvy Lions to be ripe to lose the opener at home yet also applied the fundamentals it takes to right the ship.
All that good and bad suffices to keep Pelphrey teaching and preaching right up to tipoff of their next game Thursday night in Walton Arena against California-Davis. “ This is the best lesson we can get right now, ” Pelphrey said. “ To get challenged and find some incredible way to win, get a taste of what it’s like to play at Bud Walton Arena and how passionate these fans are. Now we get to go back and scream and yell off a win and they know they need to pay attention. ”
They also boosted their confidence in themselves and warmed their coach’s heart about their heart by pulling it out with the best of old and new.
True freshmen guards Fortson, 18 points and 7 assists versus 6 turnovers, and Rotnei Clarke, 17 points with 5 of 8 treys including a huge trey with 24 seconds left in regulation to pull Arkansas to down 76-75, and JC transfer forward Montrell McDonald, 7 points, 8 rebounds, 2 steals and the big assist on Clarke’s critical last trey, were the best of the new. New-old Michael Sanchez, the Springdale Har-Ber alum redshirted last year as a freshman, contributed 12 boards.
Nobody, young or old, stepped up like Michael Washington. The 6-9 junior 2-year letterman from McGehee, always the young stripling overshadowed by the forecourt forest of now graduated former Razorbacks Steven Hill, Darian Townes, Charles Thomas and Vincent Hunter, responded with stardom to the spotlight. He scored a career high 30 points with 14 rebounds.
“ I can’t say enough about his performance, ” Pelphrey said.
Young Clarke said the old hand dealt the season opener’s outcome way before it started.
“ He is pretty much unstoppable in practice, ” Clarke said. “ In practice he shows a lot of character, a lot of leadership, and it carries over into games. ”
Even for a veteran team, much less a young bunch like these Hogs, they showed surprising poise erasing a lategame deficit.
“ It’s something all these guys have lived for, ” Clarke said. “ We are united and we played well together and it was fun getting a win like that to be 1-0. ”
A rewarding opening shot for rookies under the gun.
“ I think it was a great test for us, ” Fortson said, “ being we are a young team. We had to deal with adversity. It came with the first game, but it only makes us stronger. We will get better. ”
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