John Calipari encourages Arkansas to 'burn the tape' after South Carolina loss

With two wins, Arkansas was finally back in projections for the NCAA Tournament. However, the Razorbacks could be back out after a historically poor performance this weekend that John Calipari wants he and his team to forget.

Calipari discussed the “dud” from the Razorbacks in their 72-53 loss at South Carolina on Saturday. He said it was one they were almost due for after their improvement over February but was still bad enough to burn away in Columbia.

“You know, I told the guys after. Folks, we, we’ve been through a gauntlet, just like South Carolina,” said Calipari. “I told them, eight games like we played? You were due for a dud. It was a dud. Move on.”

“I said burn the tape and let’s get ready for Vandy,” Calipari said.

Calipari gave credit to the Gamecocks, though, as they, despite having just two conference wins, continued to play well at home in Colonial Life Arena.

“They were really aggressive,” said Calipari. “If you want to know what I told Coach when I walked down? I said, if you played all home games, you’d be top-ten because they play really well in this building. They beat Texas the same way they beat us. It was almost carbon copy.”

The ‘Hogs had about as bad of a game offensively, especially in the first half, in the 19-point loss where they were down as much as 35. They shot just 28.8% overall from the field and 13.6% from three, after missing each of their first seventeen triples, in the game. That included a first half where they scored just 14 points on 12.5% FG and 0% 3PT.

Of all that went wrong for them, although not keeping the film of it, the three-point shooting on offense and points allowed in the paint on defense are what Calipari noted most from this lost and moving forward in their final two games in conference play.

“When you go 0-17? Shouldn’t win a game. Someone got to make a shot,” said Calipari. “You were 0-17. You’re not going to be in a good game.”

“I said, now, what they did to us? They exploited us near the basket, which my guess is every team will try to do now,” Calipari continued. “We’ve got to figure that out.”

Arkansas, in falling to 17-12, couldn’t have been much worse this weekend. Now, with them very much back on the bubble, the Razorbacks will need to forget about that one ahead of their last pair starting against the Commodores in Nashville on Tuesday.