John Calipari's biggest disappointment in loss at Tennessee? 'They kind of manhandled us'
Zakai Zeigler, all 5-foot-9, 172 pounds of him, finished with five rebounds in 37 minutes Saturday afternoon, during No. 1 Tennessee’s 76-52 throttling of No. 23 Arkansas to open the SEC schedule.
It wasn’t his most notable stat. He scored 12 points. He added seven assists.
Worth noting, though, is that Zeigler’s five rebounds would have tied for a team high for Arkansas. The Razorbacks finished with just 29 boards as a team, with Adou Thiero and Jonas Aidoo grabbing five each.
Tennessee had 51 rebounds as a team, outrebounding Arkansas by 22, including 23-8 on the offensive glass, leading to 16 second-chance points.
‘You play this (Tennessee) team, you better be coming in ready to fight’
Igor Milicic had a career-high 18 rebounds, the most by a player during the Rick Barnes era, and Cade Phillips (6) and Jordan Gainey (5) combined for 11 more off the bench.
It was those kind of numbers that had John Calipari talking before he even sat down for his postgame press conference.
“I’ve had better days,” Calipari said, hesitating for a second before continuing on.
“(Tennessee is) the number one team in the country for a reason,” he added. “And my disappointment wasn’t in coming to Tennessee and losing a game. It was they kind of manhandled us.”
After Tennessee led by 15 points at halftime, Calipari begged his team to get the deficit back to single digits. It never happened, not with the Vols living on the glass.
“They had more offensive rebounds than we had rebounds,” Calipari said. “I want you to hear what I just said … If we (did) something good, they get an offensive rebound. We (did) something good, they get an offensive rebound. We make it 13 (points), they get two offensive rebounds, two threes.”
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‘The transfer in’ hammered Arkansas on the glass
Milicic had nearly as many offensive rebounds himself (6) and Arkansas had as a team (9). Calipari either didn’t know his name or just didn’t use his name during his press conference, only referring to him as “the transfer in.”
“The transfer in,” he said, “he helps them because you can stretch the floor a little bit. He’s pretty good and he hurt us rebounding. I think he had double-digit rebounds, come on. I mean, who was guarding him? Or not blocking him out?”
The answer was no one. It was a 27-12 rebounding advantage for Tennessee in the first half and a 24-17 advantage in the second half. Milcic had nine rebounds in both halves.
“I can’t remember the last time I had a team get beat by (22) rebounds,” Calipari said. “So we’ve got to do some soul searching, because this league, what they play like, everybody plays like … hats off to Tennessee. They’re the number one team for a reason and they did it to us.”
That was the point Calipari kept circling back to. His team didn’t just lose by 24 points. Arkansas got manhandled by No. 1 Tennessee.
“You play this team, you better be coming in ready to fight,” he said. “And I don’t mean fist fight, I mean battle. You better be first to the ball. You better be blocking out. You better run and get some free baskets, or it’s going to be a hard game for you. And we didn’t.”
