After a disappointing performance against an average Southland Conference team, the Longhorns look to bounce back quickly in a road test against Arkansas tonight. Last year, the Longhorns fell victim to an upset at this same arena, losing to a young Razorback team, 67-61. While this season’s Arkansas team isn’t as young, it’s possibly just as inexperienced, thanks to a handful of suspensions and dismissals.

Five different Razorbacks were suspended by Coach John Pelphrey at the start of the season, and while a few have rejoined the team, starting point guard Courtney Fortson is still missing in action. The coach is still tight-lipped about the suspension, refusing to say when — if ever — the sophomore will reclaim his duties as the team’s floor leader. Without Fortson in the mix, freshman point guard Julysses Nobles has been thrust into the role, where he has had his share of growing pains.

By the numbers

The Razorbacks are sitting at a perfect .500 record, having knocked off a handful of small schools like Delaware State and Alcorn State, while losing to a diverse group of teams including Louisville, Baylor, and Morgan State.

For Arkansas, the biggest problem is their lack of size, and it manifests itself in the rebounding battle. The Razorbacks grab just 30% of their offensive rebounding opportunities, placing the team firmly in the bottom third of the nation. On defense, they allow their opponents to snag 33% of their offensive board chances, which is a respectable number on the surface. But when you look closer at the stats, it’s clear that the numbers are skewed by the cupcakes on Arkansas’ schedule.

In the seven losses that the Razorbacks have suffered, they have not held an opponent to less than a 47.2% offensive rebounding mark. In six of those losses, Arkansas gave up more than 51% of the opportunities, with East Tennessee State recovering a ridiculous 69.4% of their chances. Against a much bigger and deeper Texas team, the Razorbacks are going to have their hands full keeping the Longhorns from cleaning up the offensive glass.

For the second-straight game, Texas will also be facing an opponent who mirrors their struggles from the line. While the Longhorns are hitting just 62.8% of their free throws, the Razorbacks are making 65% of their attempts. If tonight’s game turns into a physical foul-fest, both teams could leave a ton of points on the stripe.

Meet the Razorbacks

The key player for Arkansas is sophomore sharpshooter Rotnei Clarke. In his season debut, Clarke set a school record by scoring 51, knocking down 13 three-pointers on the night. He has a quick release and elevates well to get shots over taller defenders despite his 6-foot frame. Clarke is deceptively quick off the dribble, and worked hard on his runners in the off-season to make his game even more dangerous.

The Razorbacks spend a lot of their time setting screens off the ball for Clarke, and as a result, their offense can often bog down if the defense is successfully shutting down the long-range gunner. But when Clarke’s shot is falling, it opens things up inside for a pair of big men who can score in bunches.

Michael Washington is the center who benefits the most from the outside-in attack of the Razorbacks. But the 6’9” senior isn’t just a lump in the paint — he actually has three-point range, and will often try one or two trifectas per game. He’s very active on the glass and has a fairly consistent midrange jumper. This year, he’s third on the team in scoring and second in rebounding, providing 13.2 points and 5.6 boards per game.

The other man reaping the benefits when defenses key on Clarke is freshman forward Marshawn Powell. Like Washington, he has a nice midrange jumper and hustles for the rebounds against bigger, stronger opponents. Powell still needs to add some muscle to his 6’7” frame, but he’s playing very well for a freshman and is actually tops on the team with 6.6 boards per game. His 14.9 points are second on the team behind only Clarke.

Jermal Farmer is the other main scorer for Arkansas, making a quick impact after transferring from Cloud County College in Kansas. In his Razorback debut, Farmer scored 28 points, but was overshadowed by Clarke’s 51-point outburst. A 6’5” swingman, the Juco transfer is an incredibly athletic player, and one of the few on the Arkansas roster who can create his own shot.

As mentioned earlier, Nobles is a freshman guard who has been thrust into the starting role at the point thanks to Fortson’s suspension. He’s logged 60 dimes in his first fourteen games, but has posted an assist-to-TO ratio of just 1.54-to-1. Nobles hasn’t yet shown consistency from the floor this season, but his three-point percentage (36.8%) is actually second on the team behind Clarke’s astronomically-high 51% mark.

Marcus Britt and Stef Welsh are the only men off the bench who play more than 20 minutes a game, and they combine for 12.5 points per contest. Britt is a junior guard who has a steady hand with the ball and helps Nobles with distribution duties. Welsh is a senior who has locked down the sixth-man role and is best known for his stifling defense. Last year, he was the main man responsible for holding A.J. Abrams to just seven points.

Keys to the game

Based simply on the size mismatch and the trouble that Arkansas has on the glass, the rebounding battle will be key to the outcome tonight. If the Razorbacks want to have any chance at the home upset, they will have to keep Texas from piling up second-chance points, and they will have to earn their own extra possessions by beating the Longhorns on the offensive glass.

The other huge factor in tonight’s game will be the play of Clarke, the three-point specialist. If the suffocating Texas defense can limit his scoring, it will not only scuttle the Arkansas offense, but also exhaust the Razorbacks as they work even harder to free Clarke up for open looks. If Arkansas hopes to pull off a huge upset tonight, there is no doubt that the dead-eye sophomore must have a huge game.

Those two keys are essentially all that matters tonight. But for Texas fans, it will worth keeping an eye on what the Longhorns do against the zone looks that Arkansas will mix in. Texas seemed completely unwilling to attack the soft middle of the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi zone on Saturday, settling just for ball reversal on the perimeter and an excessive number of threes. The Longhorns simply must attempt to run some passes through the high post or attack the defense with some solid dribble penetration. If they can’t do it against the likes of Arkansas, they will have a really hard time getting any offense against many of their Big 12 foes.

The big finish

It’s interesting to note that both the Longhorn basketball and football teams are 13-0 as of this morning. If both can win their weekday games over the next three days, the the basketball team will match the best start in school history and the football team will win some sort of trophy. I hear it’s a shiny crystal thing that looks like a football…

This game preview is coming to you from the passenger seat of a car on northbound I-35, so further website updates will be at least a day away. We’ve got a nine-hour drive in store right after the game tonight, meaning that post-game thoughts — and a few thoughts about the A&M-CC disappointment — won’t be available until Wednesday night.

In the meantime, you can get quick updates from the road and Bud Walton Arena by following our Twitter @LonghornRdTrip. Don’t say it — we know. The whole idea of the Twitter thing seems a bit ridiculous, and we were more than resistant to the idea. But after much convincing, we finally realized that it does provide an incredibly easy way to update from inside the games, and even allowed us to break the diagnosis of Varez Ward’s injury a full twelve hours before the mainstream media. If you don’t feel like following our updates on another whole website, don’t fret — in theory, we’ll even have the Twitter updates lodged into this website’s sidebar in the near future.

For those of you fortunate enough to not be living in the state of Arkansas — or crazy enough to make the drive — you’ll have to catch tonight’s action on ESPN2. Enjoy the game, and we’ll see you folks here again tomorrow night.