If Arkansas wants to rally in February and make a run at the SEC title, the Razorbacks know which team they have to catch and chase down.
The SEC basketball race has been cluttered and confusing for much of the past five weeks, but if January painted an uncertain picture in the conference, the first day of February brought clarity to the league. The Florida Gators are the obvious favorite to win the SEC basketball championship. If Arkansas wants to make a run at the trophy and engineer a course correction on par with last year's February surge, the Hogs will have to go through the Gators.
Florida didn't merely beat Alabama on Sunday; it hammered the Crimson Tide 100-77. Alabama is an ordinary basketball team with a poorly-constructed roster. Nate Oats is flailing all while the Tide litigate the matter of Charles Bediako. That soap opera isn't helping them, which magnifies the sense that trying to pry players away from the pros and bring them back to college just isn't worth the headaches involved.
While Alabama fades into mediocrity -- Arkansas is clearly a better team than the Tide -- Florida just keeps rising. Todd Golden is showing why he won the national championship last season, and why he's firmly in the top tier of all college basketball coaches. He had a real point guard problem earlier this season at Florida. Xaivian Lee was struggling and holding the team back. Golden figured out how to coach him and adjust the line of attack for the Florida offense. The Gators stumbled early in January but found their footing. They won a racehorse game at Vanderbilt, the first big indication that they were on the right track. This 100-point showing against Alabama affirms that Florida is the class of the SEC.
Arkansas has a full week off before returning to the hardwood against Mississippi State on February 7. The first order of business for John Calipari is to get his team to really lock in on defense. Opponents are throwing punches and Arkansas is just not matching their energy early in games. Arkansas also needs balanced production from its lineup. It can't just be Darius Acuff and Trevon Brazile most of the time. UA needs five or six players making major contributions so that defenses can't just focus on the stars.
While Arkansas spends this week trying to regroup and find a much tougher mindset for the February road ahead, the Hogs also need to look at what Florida is doing so that they can identify why the Gators are having so much success. Florida's prosperity is not by accident.
Arkansas visits Florida on February 28. During the week off, Calipari will obviously have Mississippi State as his first point of focus, but it would be advisable for him to look at some Florida-Bama film. Hogs visit the Tide on Feburary 18.
Arkansas has to fix its own problems first and before anything else, but if the Hogs are to challenge for the SEC, Florida is now unquestionably the team to beat.