TAT: Arkansas Basketball A-Z - X-factor

This article originally appeared on January 6, 2013 on The Arkansas Traveler website, uatrav.com.

Most basketball teams have an “x-factor,” a player that may be undersized, but energizes the team with his hustle and scrappy play.

Senior Kikko Haydar is Arkansas’ “x-factor.”

Coming out of Fayetteville High, Haydar could have taken an athletic scholarship at any of the Ivy League schools, but instead he decided to take an academic scholarship at Arkansas and walk-on to the Razorbacks.

In his first two seasons, the 5-foot-10 guard barely saw the floor. Haydar saw action in only 29 games and played just 3.7 minutes per game in his freshman and sophomore years combined.

Haydar didn’t make much of an impact in the box score either. He averaged 0.9 points, 0.4 rebounds, 0.3 assists and 0.2 steals per game. Behind the three-point line, he shot 4-for-21, which is only 19 percent.

However, he burst onto the scene last season, playing in all 31 games. Haydar saw his playing time increase to 13.3 minutes per game, as well.

He has also played in every game this season, even making one start. Every minute he has been on the court, he has personified the expression “give 110 percent.”

His biggest contributions aren’t quantified by statistics, as he hustles on defense and dives for loose balls, but he has contributed to the box score the last year and half, too.

Since his junior year, Haydar has averaged 3.4 points, 1.4 rebounds, 0.9 assists and 0.7 steals per game. His three-point shooting has improved by 23 percentage points, as he has shot 42 percent from behind the arc.

Despite being one of the smallest players in the Southeastern Conference, Haydar will be a key to Arkansas’ success during SEC play.

This is the 24th 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 last two…

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

R – Rebounding

S – Southeastern Conference

T – Turnovers

U – Underdogs

V – Victories on the Road

W – Wade and Williams

Y – Jan. 7

Z – Jan. 8