TAT: Arkansas Basketball A-Z - Rebounding

This article originally appeared on December 31, 2013 on The Arkansas Traveler website, uatrav.com.

If there has been one area Arkansas has struggled in during Mike Anderson’s tenure as head coach, it has been rebounding.

During Anderson’s first two seasons, the Razorbacks have finished ninth and 10th in the Southeastern Conference in the category, pulling down an average of 34.4 rebounds per game.

While Arkansas is still only seventh in the SEC in rebounding this season, it is improving. The Razorbacks’ 37.4 rebounds per game is 10.7 percent better than the 2011-12 season, Anderson’s first year as head coach.

Interestingly, the Razorbacks have done so without one dominant rebounder. None of Arkansas’ players rank in the top 100 in the NCAA for rebounding, but five average more than four rebounds per game.

The Razorbacks had only four such players in the previous two seasons combined.

This is despite losing three of its top four rebounders from last season, Marshawn Powell, BJ Young and Hunter Mickelson.

Helping fill in for these players has been a pair of 6-foot-10-inch freshmen: Moses Kingsley and Bobby Portis. The freshmen duo combine for 10.2 rebounds per game.

The biggest surprise of the season so far has probably been Michael Qualls. The sophomore guard averaged only 3.4 rebounds per game last season, but is pulling in 4.9 per game this year.

Senior Coty Clarke, the only remaining top four rebounder from last year, has also contributed to Arkansas’ rebounding, averaging 5.3 per game.

This rebounding will need to continually improve throughout the season if the Razorbacks expect to compete with teams like Kentucky and LSU, which both rank in the top 10 in the NCAA in rebounding.

This is the 18th of a series of short articles about the Arkansas basketball team. Each day leading up to SEC play, I will post an entry about something basketball related that starts with the next letter of the alphabet. Here are links to the previous entries, as well as the dates for the next five…

A – Anderson

B – Balance

C – Charity Stripe

D – Defense

E – Expectations

F – Fastest 40

G – Gulley

H – Harris

I – Identity

J – JUCO Transfer

K – Kingsley

L – Lackadaisical

M – Madden

N – Natives

O – Offense

P – Portis

Q – Qualls

S – Jan. 1

T – Jan. 2

U – Jan. 3

V – Jan. 4

W – Jan. 5