The Hogs are gobbled up by monstrous expectations

Sporting News, The, Dec 25, 1995 by Michael DeCourcy

It is his monster. Coach Nolan Richardson molded this creature in his image: gifted, intense, unyielding, always threatening. He gave it a name, 40 Minutes of Hell, just so everyone would know Arkansas basketball had been radically altered.

The monster generally has been obedient, but occasionally it imperils its master. Like last year, when Richardson was criticized because his team lost six games on the way to the NCAA final. Like now. Arkansas has almost an entirely new roster, full of high school and junior-college recruits, yet the Hogs were rated No. 17 by The Sporting News at the season's outset. A month into this experiment, they are 4-3 and have lost twice at previously impenetrable Bud Walton Arena.

"We've been to the Final Four three times in the '90s. "The expectation is already there. It's built in," Richardson says, dismissing the preseason rankings. "Every person I know in Arkansas is talking about the Final Four. They don't realize we have nine new players. But, you create a monster and you try to feed it."

There is a kind of irony to the expectations shoved upon the Razorbacks. Consider that just two years after Richardson led them to the NCAA championship and complained all the while about lack of respect for his coaching ability, he's got more than he could want.

Whereas few figured North Carolina's Dean Smith and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski could mold championship contenders out of clubs that featured four McDonald's All-Americas each, Richardson was expected to piece together a big winner despite all the new faces.

Aware be was about to lose a senior class full of accomplished players -- plus juniors Corliss Williamson and Scotty Thurman -- Richardson assembled a great recruiting class, covering every position and nearly every class. With junior post men Darnell Robinson and Lee Wilson returning and snazzy first-year point guard Kareem Reid eligible after sitting out last season, the Hogs entered the year with loads of talent but no idea how it would fit together.

Arkansas has been wildly unpredictable, occasionally throwing moments of brilliance toward their fans, more often throwing them the ball.

Richardson knows a lot of the problems the Razorbacks have encountered will be solved with time. Freshman forwards Ali Thompson and Derek Hood and junior-college forward Sunday Adebayo are amazing athletes; J.C. guard Jesse Pate is an exceptional scorer; and Wilson and Robinson provide the necessary size.

The one thing lacking from this team that was a big part of recent Arkansas success is a long-range attack to discourage zone defenses. There would have been one if Thurman, now with the CBA's Sioux Falls Skyforce, hadn't made the mistake of entering the NBA draft; he'd have given this team the leader and shooter it needs. Now, there's just 6-foot-2 freshman Pat Bradley, who has great range but can't score inside the arc, and Pate, more slasher than shooter.

Richardson is quick to point out that guards Marlon Towns and Marcus Saxon were recruited as shooters, but Towns had his ACT score challenged and Saxon did not finish his junior-college degree.

"Those two guys are not with this basketball team, and things have changed," Richardson says. "We're not going to be what you would call an outside perimeter team, which I've enjoyed in the past, but we'll have to make up some of that with our defense and rebounding. I think wet be able to do that, and in time, we'll be better at shooting than we are at this point."

This is a far more athletically gifted team than its predecessor, which had to abandon Richardson's customary defensive pressure to accommodate less-mobile players like Williamson and Dwight Stewart. Whereas the previous point guard, Corey Beck, controlled the offense and defense, Reid is averaging just short of four turnovers a game. That might be tolerable if he didn't have four others battling him for the term lead.

"When you lose as many guys as we lost and are trying to put in the system we run -- it's not an easy system," Richardson says. "People think all we do is roll out the basketball and start to play well, and that doesn't happen."

He's back

We've seen enough players from such places as St. Croix and lithuania to know talent can be found anywhere, but who other than Penn State got a player off its coaching staff?.

That's where 6-foot-8-power forward Matt Gaudio spent the 1994-95 season, as a student assistant. A physical player, be was so crippled by chronic back problems he used to cringe each time he entered the lane and absorbed another Big Ten banging. Gaudio had surgery and basically retired.

"I played in an intramural game this past January and I was like, `This is so fun. What am I doing?'" Gaudio says. "I always thought I never really proved to myself that I can be healthy and do what I can do out on the floor."

Gaudio spent the summer working with the Penn State football trainers. He was averaging 12.2 points and 7.8 rebounds for the 6-0 Lions. From his coaching experience, he knows they sorely missed his low-post scoring and front-line toughness last season, when Penn State went 21-11 and advanced to the NIT Final Four.