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Pelphrey gets good grade Monday, Mar 24, 2008 By Harry King LITTLE ROCK - Leaving the arena in Raleigh on Friday night, a cohort offered how far Arkansas had come since the central Arkansas fiasco in mid-December against Appalachian State. To fully appreciate the work and the will of coach John Pelphrey, you only need rewind 10 days. Outmuscled and outhustled on a Tuesday night in Oxford, Miss., the Razorbacks got it together enough to finish the up and down regular season with a victory over awful Auburn and headed to the Southeastern Conference needing to beat nationally ranked Vanderbilt to be dead-certain of an NCAA Tournament bid. Thirty games deep in a so-so season, Pelphrey's job was to cajole or browbeat or whatever a group heavy with seniors, not necessarily a positive for a team in a major conference. It's one thing to mold young and pliable players who are your own; it's a distinctly more arduous task to persuade athletes who were recruited by somebody else and who have had three years to get comfortable with failure. Pelphrey handled the assignment splendidly and he did it twice, regrouping the same bunch after a disappointment in the SEC Tournament finals against Georgia. In Raleigh, he narrowed the focus to Indiana and its two stars, shut out the likely meeting with No. 1 North Carolina, and then got the Razorbacks through the first-half loss of Stefan Welsh who had already made two important 3-pointers. Prior to the victories over Vanderbilt and Tennessee, Pelphrey had what amounted to a free pass, thanks in large part to Nolan Richardson's predicament during his first year at Arkansas. Those who remembered were willing to give Pelphrey credit for the occasional successes and write off the no-compete losses in the name of Stan Heath. When Richardson arrived in 1985, expectations were out the roof, advanced by his predecessor, Eddie Sutton. It was Sutton who said he was leaving behind a ready-made winner, maybe a Final Four team. Eric Poerschke, Jay Crane, William Mills, Andrew Lang and the others might have done well in Sutton's system, but Richardson wanted players who could double-team 90 feet from the basket and the holdovers were not qualified. In fact, four of Sutton's Razorbacks decided to play someplace else after one year under Richardson. In a sense, it was the same with Pelphrey. Heath's last team achieved just enough to tease and there were those who figured the Razorbacks would improve simply by being yelled at by somebody, anybody. The truth is that Pelphrey doesn't have a pure shooter or a no-fault point guard although both are supposedly on the way. Darian Townes is not capable of being the 6-foot-10 player who Pelphrey wants at the front of his press and Michael Washington is not there yet. Arkansas fans shouldn't get all balled up about the ease of North Carolina's victory on Sunday afternoon. If a rehash of the season is necessary, latch onto the decisions over Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and the first NCAA Tournament victory this decade. Outmanned from the start, Arkansas helped the Tar Heels with four turnovers that led to nine of their first 23 points and a 14-point lead. If this was going to be the one game in 20 that Arkansas beat North Carolina, the Tar Heels had to have an off-night and Sonny Weems had to be as good as he was when he made 11 straight shots against Indiana. Instead, the Tar Heels shot brilliantly and Weems began 1-of-6, including a misfire on a 3 when it was 38-18. Weems, Townes, Steven Hill, Gary Ervin, Charles Thomas, and Vincent Hunter all contributed at times, but Pelphrey is unlikely to shed a tear at the exit of the seniors. His 2009 team could still be in a state of flux with more signings and a departure or two, but a majority of the players will be of his choosing and until there is evidence to the contrary, assume he can recognize talent. Considering how he kept this bunch together at the end and the fact that freshmen can contribute immediately, there should be some good times ahead. ----- Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media's Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com. |
