Razorbacks win with Beverley
Last updated Saturday, January 26, 2008 10:57 PM CST in Columns
By Harry King
Stephens Media's Arkansas News Bureau
BATON ROUGE, La. - Deservedly, Sonny Weems will get kudos for 19 first-half points that helped Arkansas to what appeared to be a coast-home lead.
The down and dirty credit for the must-win goes to Patrick Beverley. He played with exemplary hustle, rebounded stoutly, made critical 3s and did all the little things in between. One of his few mistakes occurred when he went high for a rebound, tumbled to the floor, dribbled a couple of times, and then got to his feet -- a violation.
Somehow, he was the first one down the court on almost every Arkansas possession and it wasn't because he was bailing out early on defense.
If Patrick Beverley was all about himself, he could sulk. His scoring average is down from last year when he was the Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year and so are his field goal attempts.
LSU scored the first eight points of the second half and the lead was only 44-36 when Darian Townes took steps. The Tigers' Anthony Randolph missed a 3, but Beverley didn't.
The next time, Michael Washington failed to finish on a drive and Alex Farrer was in front of everybody headed for the other end. Busting it, Beverley got back and knocked away the shot.
He helped with a turnover and, at 51-40, Beverley wrapped up another double-double with his 10th rebound.
Moments later, his pass caromed off an official. Instead of "Why me?" he hurried back to deal with a two-on-one until Steven Hill arrived to block a shot.
And, it was Beverley's 3 for 60-45 that finally secured the 68-52 victory. Before doing the post-game radio show, he was on his cell phone -- a perk that coach John Pelphrey forbids after a loss.
From the moment that Arkansas lost to Georgia a week ago, it was clear that the Razorbacks desperately needed to beat the Tigers. Pelphrey made that point and a couple of others with a 1:30 a.m. practice Sunday after the return from Athens.
LSU is an inferior team, the sort that will be hard-pressed to win a conference game. Losers of eight straight, the Tigers are so short-handed that they must use a couple of student managers when they scrimmage.
On top of that, Mississippi State beat Ole Miss by 20 points just hours before the LSU tip and a loss would have put the Razorbacks three games behind the Western division-leading Bulldogs. As it is, they trail by two games with the Bulldogs in Fayetteville on Wednesday night.
Arkansas jumped out to a 22-9 lead, making nine of its first 19 shots. Weems was good on 4-of-7, including all three of his 3s. At the same point, LSU was 4-of-13 from the field.
Off-balance, Weems' fifth field goal made you think squaring up is overrated. It was 28-14 at that point.
More than once, LSU was perplexed when an inside defender jumped out to help a teammate guarding the ball handler. Certainly, the Tigers did not have a guard who could take advantage and feed the open man.
Inside the arena, the atmosphere was almost comical.
Instead of the captains meeting with the officials before the tip, Arkansas' entire team attended the confab. Maybe that was a show of unity, but the LSU players liked the looks of it and joined in and it was only a slight exaggeration that there were more people at midcourt than in the stands.
For the player intros, the P.A. implored: "On your feet Tiger fans" and was mostly ignored. From behind the goal, fireworks accompanied each intro and there was sort of an appropriate fizzle sound each time.
The fans were not comatose -- the P.A. guy was selling team instead of T-shirts. With 3:56 left in the half and Arkansas ahead 34-16, almost all of the purple people were on their feet, begging to be on the receiving end of a toss of cloth.
It was so bad that three minutes before the start of the second half, there were a few boos. Along press row, the question was "Which team came out."
It was so bad that at halftime, concession stand workers were waiting to wait on people.
The box score said the attendance was 8,860. That figure should be preceded by the code word "announced."
About this columnist
The dean of Arkansas sports writers, Harry King updates his column five days per week with the latest on the Razorbacks. A 35-year veteran of The Associated Press, King joined the Arkansas News Bureau in May of 2002. He's covered the Razorbacks since the Arkansas-Texas game dubbed the Big Shootout in 1969.
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