Week 16 Men's Basketball Preview: Arkansas State
Arkansas State men’s basketball continues to be one of the Sun Belt’s most confounding teams. The Red Wolves have the second-best NET rating in the conference, just four spots behind Troy on the nation-wide leaderboard. Despite this, they sit in seventh place in the standings with a 7-7 record against conference opponents. With just four games to go, Arkansas State will need to emulate the team that NET believes them to be, rather than the team they’ve shown they are. This week, those opportunities come in Louisiana, with two road games against Louisiana and ULM.
Arkansas State at Louisiana
The Red Wolves first game of the road trip comes against the one remaining opponent they have yet to play this season. The Ragin Cajuns find themselves third-to-last in the conference with a 6-8 record. That number tells a difficult truth for Arkansas State: they aren’t too far from the bottom. With a loss, the Red Wolves would be fighting to stay out of the conference cellar instead of trying to climb into its upper-echelon.
On paper, Arkansas State should be comfortable favorites in this game. Louisiana’s NET ranking of 309 dwarfs in comparison to the Red Wolves’ 147. Arkansas State’s 16-11 overall record is superior to the Ragin Cajuns’ 9-18 mark. Offensively, the teams aren’t in the same ballpark, either. The Red Wolves average almost 20 more points per game.
But the game isn’t played on a standings page, loose-leaf paper or a Microsoft spreadsheet – it’s played on a court. For Arkansas State to be the victors on the hardwood, they will need to tighten up defensively. Last week, they allowed two 30-point scorers: ULM’s Krystian Lewis and South Alabama’s Chaze Harris. Louisiana has yet to have a player score 30 points in a game this season, but the Red Wolves defense would provide one of the best opportunities for a player to do so. They rank third-worst in the conference, allowing 77.5 points per game. If Dorian Finister or Jaxon Olvera were to have an offensive explosion, this game would provide the perfect stage.
Arkansas State’s high-powered offense will continue to be powered by Christian Harmon. The Rochester, N.Y. native scored a career-best 33 points while draining nine of his outrageous 22 three-point attempts in Saturday’s overtime loss to South Alabama. His 13.2 points per game average leads the team, and he has registered double-digit scoring totals in nine straight contests. The team also features two of the better rebounders in the conference in Aly Tounkara and Jalen Hampton. With those two on the floor together, second-chance opportunities might be hard to come by for Louisiana.
Tipoff: Thursday, Feb. 19, 7:00 p.m. CT
TV: ESPN+
Radio: 107.9 KFIN (Arkansas State), KPEL 96.5 FM (Louisiana)
Arkansas State at ULM
While Louisiana sits near the bottom of the Sun Belt standings, ULM sits dead last. The Warhawks have just one win in conference play, and sport a 4-23 record overall. When they played in Jonesboro last week, Arkansas State scored 103 points – their second-highest mark of the season. The Red Wolves scored at will, grabbed any rebound they wanted, and played solid defense. Lewis’ 30-point performance was the only blemish on an otherwise superb effort from Arkansas State.
In order for the Red Wolves to earn another comfortable win, they will need to cool Lewis from beyond the arc. He made seven of his 13 threes in last week’s game. If he is able to stay hot and get going early, ULM could sneak out a win. But with the significant rebounding advantage Arkansas State possesses, forcing missed shots will not lead to extra Warhawk possessions. By limiting those second-chance opportunities, the Red Wolves should have no problem extending their win streak over ULM to five games.
Tipoff: Saturday, Feb. 21, 2:00 p.m. CT
TV: ESPN+
Radio: 107.9 KFIN (Arkansas State), KLIP 105.3 FM (ULM)
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