JACKSONVILLE — In Season 2 of the hit Netflix show House of Cards, Freddy Hayes tells Frank Underwood that in order to get the right result when you cook ribs, you have to slowbleed a pig during the butchering process.
Wofford, a school located in the fictional Underwood’s home state of South Carolina. tried to enjoy the end result of the basketball version of that strategy Thursday night and it almost worked, but the No. 12 seeded Terriers fell to the No. 5 seed Arkansas Razorbacks 56-53.
“Mike Young and Wofford, what a gutsy performance. It was a game played at their pace, and we were fortunate to be on the winning side,” Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. “As I was telling our guys back there, they just ran out of time. Thank goodness, they ran out of time.”
For Wofford, the slowbleed gameplan was about controlling the tempo, an attempt to clutter the game against an Arkansas team that ranks No. 9 nationally in adjusted tempo according to Kenpom.com.
The Terriers are decidedly on the other end of the spectrum, 315th in adjusted tempo.
They turned the ball over only eight times. They kept the score of the game in the 50s. They slowed it down to only 60 possessions for each team on offense.
And still, at the end, Eric Garcia’s three pointer at the buzzer that looked perfectly on-line rimmed out — a cruel end for a Wofford team still in search of its first NCAA tournament victory in school history.
It was play at the end of the game that did the Terriers in. They were 2 for 11 from the field coming in the game’s last 7:09. Looking back, they probably had no business being in the game at all. The Razorbacks shot 46 percent from the field and got most of what they wanted inside with 36 points in the paint.
But thanks in large part to 14 offensive rebounds, the undersized Terriers kept the game close, never letting Arkansas lead by more than three points.
“I think it's kudos to our guys. We can win a lot of different ways, and I think we showed that tonight,” Anderson said. “We've been in a lot of games that have been close where it comes down to a possession, where teams have slowed us down. And the thing -- I have the utmost confidence and faith in these guys that they're going to carry out their assignments, and they did.”
Arkansas did not get what it needed for most of the game from the highly touted Bobby Portis. The big man finished with 15 points, but was 3 for 10 at one point with only eight points. Portis did finish with 13 rebounds against a Wofford starting lineup that didn’t feature a player that stood taller than 6-foot-6. Where Portis struggled, guard Michael Qualls stood tall. He was 8 for 9 from the field with 20 points. Qualls and Portis were the only Razorbacks with more than eight points.
“You know, it's a big stage. No one has ever played in the NCAA Tournament on our team, so it was just a big — it was big for us. We wanted to come out. I felt like everybody was so overeager and overzealous that we just had to calm down and settle our nerves,” Qualls said. “But that just shows you the leadership that we have on this team. We didn't get rattled. We talked to the younger guys on the team, telling them, hey, we've done this before, we're going to do what we do.”
It was a tight game, the style of game that the Razorbacks are used to playing and winning this year. They’re 10-2 this season in games decided by less than six points or less, and Anderson praised the way they adjusted to circumstances, calling his team the cardiac kids.
Unfortunately for the Terriers, the slow bleed didn’t work. It was the Hogs that tasted the sweetness of victory when it was all over.
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
The Arkansas bench celebrates their 56-53 win over Wofford during an NCAA tournament second round college basketball game Friday, March 20, 2015, in Jacksonville, Fla.
