Whiffin’ and Whimperin’ Mike Anderson Era Hits All Time Low

Even though the 5th season of the Mike Anderson era isn’t over just yet (well pretty much), it’s safe to say his tenure at Arkansas has been a disappointment.

In the span of nine days, Arkansas went from being a contender for postseason play, to completely falling off the map after the worst loss of the Mike Anderson tenure on Wednesday night to an reeling, awful Auburn Tigers club.  Surprised?  Not me, as I have rode this wacky and wild Mike Anderson roller coaster ride for five years now.

It’s seems like the Auburn loss was an eye opening experience for fans across Arkansas. Many are fed up and done.  Most want to give Anderson one more year to turn it around or be gone.  The number of fans who have hope that he still has things under control is dwindling, as their apathy for the program continues to grow.

And how can you blame them? Five years in and all we continue to see is the same problems over and over that never seem to be fixed. On the road?  AHH! Late game execution? Ehh. Perimeter defense? Pitiful. Stopping dribble penetration? Foul, foul, foul or blow by layup. Lack of communication on defense? All the time.  We can go on and on, as these and several other issues are always right there and haven’t gone away.

While the negatives have outweighed the positives so far in the tenure of Mike Anderson, you do have to give him credit for a few things. The improvement over the first four years was as slow moving as an Antarctic glacier, but it was at least improvement. The horrible APR situation he inherited was fixed and he has done a solid job of developing a good number of players he has brought in.

But like I have stated previously, the negatives have outweighed the positives in my opinion. And it’s all due mostly to two things: Whiffin’ and whimperin’. Let’s go ahead and break it down.

Going out with a whimper down the stretch.

One thing that is becoming an alarming trend here during the Mike Anderson era is his teams never seen to be playing their best basketball down the stretch, and this year is turning out to be no different. In Anderson’s first season as the Head Hog, Arkansas hit a thud down the stretch, only winning one of their last seven games.  The next year they ended the season winning two of the last six, a collapse that cost the team an NIT bid. The next year?  An epic collapse, losing to a bad Alabama team by 25 and followed by a bad loss in it’s first game in the SEC tournament against South Carolina, costing the team an NCAA bid. Even in in last years 27 win season, I think most can agree the team hit it’s stride early in conference play and clearly wasn’t the same team down the stretch.

However, is this a trend?  Sadly it is. Going back to his 5 years at Missouri, Three of Anderson’s teams in his 5 seasons there did a lot of whimpering late in the year. His first team in ended losing three of their last four. The next year? Seven of their last 10. His last yea, they ended up losing five of their last six. Anderson’s great 2008-09 season at Missouri, which featured a Big 12 conference tournament title and a trip to the Elite Eight, seems more like an anomaly than a pattern.

Swing and a miss….whiff, whiff, whiff

The biggest disappointment for me as a fan has been Anderson’s recruiting, or lack thereof. The notable in state misses are evident. It seems as though Archie Goodwin opened up the flood gates when he ran to Kentucky for his “business decision” and they have been wide open ever since. But sadly, it’s more than that.

Anderson has only recruited one top 30 class in his time here.  His other classes by year are ranked as following: 2012- 58, 2013- 13, 2014- 38, 2015- 94. As good as the Portis-Kingsley class of 2013 has been, it still didn’t fill needs. The staff comically missed out and whiffed on every guard prospect it went after in both the fall and spring recruiting periods and ended up signing no one.

2014?  Whiff, whiff, whiff, whiff. While a Beard or a Thompson may turn out to be a good/decent role player in the next couple of years, there wasn’t a difference maker in this class. Luckily they were able to bring back Dusty Hannahs with an open scholarship in this class after no offering him out of high school.

2015?  Another whiff fest which featured Arkansas recruiting a massive gamble in Ted Kapita, even though it seemed like every other team had backed off and knew he wouldn’t be eligible besides Arkansas. Guard wise Arkansas hit on Jimmy Whitt, but also missed on 4-5 other guard prospects it went after. The spring was the biggest head scratcher of all, as even with three or four open scholarships, the staff never seemed to make up any ground in recruiting last spring in terms of going after any Grad transfers (there are several helping in the SEC and around the country this year) or any unsigned prep or juco level players. They ended up signing Lorenzo Jenkins and grad transfer Willy Kouassi, neither who have made much of an impact.

2016? Arkansas will get some immediate help from three JUCO All Americans for next year, a quick fix so to speak. However the class won’t have the promise that it did say a year ago. After a successful season, a new state of the art basketball practice facility and evidence of sending players to the NBA, it was still met with a collective yawn from every main prep prospect the staff went after, and that’s alarming. If the staff can’t bring top 100 players in after last year then when can they?

The excuse of it being hard to recruit to Arkansas is a bad excuse. Is it as easy as a blue blood program such as Kentucky or Duke has it?  Of course not.  But in the SEC this past year we have seen Ben Howland at Mississippi St. bring in a top 10 class, both Alabama and Auburn have out of state five stars coming in next year. Both LSU and Texas A&M have brought in McDonald’s All Americans in the last year.  It’s safe to say these programs aren’t basketball juggernauts, yet are clearly getting it done in recruiting opposed to Arkansas.

More razorbacks: Arkansas vs. Auburn Post Game Thoughts

Obviously the off season losses of Portis, Qualls, and the gang would hurt anyone, but that impact could be softened with consistently good recruiting, something this staff has failed to do over the last few years. In summary, you can’t lose that and get almost no production from your last two recruiting classes.

Luckily, the state of Arkansas will feature some very nice, highly recruited prospects over the coming years and hopefully this staff can reverse the trend and start landing all or most of these guys.

It’s year five and it seems like all the whiffin’ and whimperin’ has dug a hole for Anderson.  It will be interesting to see if he can now dig himself out.