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As the regular season of college basketball winds down, projections for where teams could be playing in March Madness ramp up. Though the No. 15 Missouri Tigers seem to be safely in the tournament, its upcoming opponent might not.
The Arkansas Razorbacks, sitting at 15-11 overall and 4-9 in conference play, firmly sit on the bubble as of now. The bubble is a term used by college basketball analysts and bracketologists to categorize a team that is on the border of being in or out of the tournament.
Despite the term’s frequent use across college basketball, Missouri head coach Dennis Gates doesn’t believe his team’s next matchup is towing that line.
“They’re not on the bubble, they’re NCAA tournament team,” Gates said. “They’re top 25 in my eyes and then our team’s eyes.”
The 4-9 conference record does not help the Razorbacks’ case for making the tournament and neither does the team’s frequent disfunctional moments. The way head coach John Calipari constructed his team, by acquiring many of his former Kentucky players, along with two others and a plethora of talented freshmen, has yet to find consistent success.
That doesn’t mean the Razorbacks don’t have any national respect. Arkansas was a preseason-ranked team according to the AP Top 25 and many expected them to be a contender in the SEC. Though it hasn’t exactly gone that way, their hope for March Madness lies on the bubble.
“In every preseason publication this team was ranked top 10 and they have not changed,” Gates said.
To many teams, where an outside organization ranks them is not important. That’s the same for Gates and his team, a point he and his players have made on numerous occasions.
“We don’t go with the ebb and flows of what opinions are from AP and what they think unless everybody watches every game, which I am shocked if every voter watches everybody’s game in the top 25 to compare and put their votes in,” Gates said.
On February 14, the NCAA Selection Committee released its top-16 committee ranking for the first time this season. The Tigers, along with Arkansas, were not included in that list. Coming off an impressive win against No. 4 Alabama and adding another against the Razorbacks would potentially move them into that group of teams.
“The only room that does that just announced only 16 [teams],” Gates said. “That’s the only ranking that matters in college basketball. We wasn’t a part of that 16. They wasn’t a part of that 16. That’s all that counts.”
Despite the lack of success, Arkansas still has a talented team with a proven head coach in Calipari. They will play with the same philosophy in Fayetteville that they did in Columbia with the same players that are capable of winning big games. Nothing about playing Arkansas on the road will be easy.
“[John] Calipari has not changed his coaching style,” Gates said. “He’s the same coach that everybody said was a top 25 team, top 10 in the country. That’s what we go off of.”
Their record and individual stats are deceiving. Led by forward Adou Thiero and guards Johnell Davis and D.J. Wagner, all it takes is one of the three getting hot for a game to spiral for their opponent. The Tigers have an important task at hand in a potential trap game that could end the momentum they’ve built over the last three games.
Missouri is hot and is playing like one of the best teams in the country right now. They defeated Arkansas 83-65 when they visited Mizzou Arena, getting out to a blazing start and not giving the Razorbacks much chance to win.
The Tigers and Razorbacks will get things started at 7:00 p.m. CT at Bud Walton Arena on Saturday, Feb. 22.
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