John Calipari on rebounding deficit vs. Tennessee: ‘We’ve got to do some soul searching’

The Arkansas Razorbacks ran into a buzzsaw with the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday. Almost immediately, head coach John Calipari saw his team go down and struggle to come back from their early deficit.

Following the game, John Calipari immediately pointed to rebounding as the main issue in the game. It was that dominance on the boards that cost the Razorbacks and now means the Razorbacks are going to need some soul searching moving forward.

“They kind of manhandled us,” John Calipari said. “I can’t remember the last time I had a team get beat by 30 rebounds, and so we got to do some soul searching because this league, what they play like, everybody plays like. So we miss free throws, we miss threes and we get out-rebounded by 30, aren’t you like, how did you only get beat by 25? It could have been 50. But hats off to Tennessee. They’re the number one team for a reason and they did it to us.”

In the end, Tennessee won the game 76-52. That was on the back of a 51-29 rebounding gap between the two teams. Arkansas had just nine offensive rebounds compared to 24 offensive rebounds by the Volunteers. That, when combined with Tennessee outshooting Arkansas, made for a challenge that they weren’t able to overcome.

“Well, first of all, we only had one guy go to try to offensive rebound. They had more offensive rebounds than we had rebounds,” Calipari said. “I want you to hear what I just said. How did we — all I kept saying in the second half, let’s get it to single digits. If we do something good, they get an offensive rebound. We do something good, they get an offensive rebound. We make it 13, they get two offensive rebounds, two threes. And you look around, like, ‘Guys, it has nothing to do with anything but rebounding.'”

For the season, Arkansas has had its issues rebounding. The Razorbacks are 217th in the country in rebounds per game, averaging 35.71 rebounds per game.

“If I play a smaller team, guards have got to rebound defensively. I don’t need you to offensive rebound, but defensively you got to come up with the ball. So we could play a bigger team with Adou [Thiero] at the three,” Calipari said. “But like I said, he didn’t play well today. He’s probably had one of those this year. So in 14 games, he’s had one other dud. He had it here, couldn’t make a free throw, and then he shoots an air-ball three. That’s not who he is, but give them credit. They made him play that way.” 

The schedule doesn’t get easier from here for Arkansas and John Calipari. Ole Miss comes to town on Wednesday before Florida will then make their presence felt on Saturday. Both of those teams are currently ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll. So, fixing the rebounding issue is going to be vital right away.