Whelp. It is a better loss than NC State's loss to unranked and previously 7-7 VT.
Losing stinks. No one likes a loss. Young team, upperclassmen team leaders not having great games, facing a team that was inspired. It is going to happen.
Lots of teaching moments to come out of this game.
Need our bigs to learn how to NOT foul. And make themselves more available to score...ONO only two points, Edwards 6.
Need to look for more opportunities to drive to the basket and draw fouls. There was precious little of this tonight and I think if we took it to the hole more, and drew more fouls, the outcome might have been different. I don't know why this team relies so heavily on the jumpers. There is enough quickness on this team to use this more often.
That said...our freshmen played very well. Paige was Paige. Nika played the fourth most minutes (25) behind Evina (40), Christyn (37) and Paige (36) and she shot 60%, 50% on threes. That has got to be a huge confidence builder. She is using the minutes that are available with Anna out to really grow.
Let's also remember that we are playing without Anna. Now we know that she had a lingering/persistent leg injury which likely impacted her effectiveness. I'm not sure she would have made a difference, but would have been able to play some minutes when Liv and Aaliyah were out with fouls.
There were some questionable fouls called on our Huskies. But there always are. There were some questionable fouls the other way as well. I'm not blaming this on the refs. Arkansas showed more aggression and drew the fouls. WE played a bit more passive.
Okay...the loss hurts. But not anywhere near as bad as losing to Tennessee or Notre Dame. And an OOC away game, in this wacky, crazy, COVIDy world...against a coach like Mike Neighbors, I can live with it.