TAT: Arkansas Basketball A-Z - Youth

This article originally appeared on January 7, 2014 on The Arkansas Traveler website, uatrav.com.

The Razorbacks’ roster is comprised of seven underclassmen. That means half of Arkansas’ eligible players this season are either freshmen or sophomores.

Despite the youth of these players, they will play an important role on the team during Southeastern Conference play.

It could be argued that Arkansas’ two most important players are underclassmen.

Sophomore guard Michael Qualls has burst onto the scene as the team’s top scorer, averaging 13.7 points per game during nonconference play. He also contributes with rebounding and blocked shots, averaging 4.9 and 0.8 per game, respectively.

His 29 assists leads the team, as well. One thing that cannot be quantified is Qualls’ ability to energize the crowd with his monster dunks. He has 18 dunks this season, some of which were posterizations over the opposing team and made SportsCenter’s Top 10 Plays.

The other underclassman contributing immensely for Arkansas is freshman forward Bobby Portis, who leads the team in rebounding (6.2), is second in scoring (12.8), tied for fourth in total assists (23), third in blocks (15) and third in steals (12).

Portis is the only Razorback to play and start in all 13 games this season.

The other underclassmen include freshman center Moses Kingsley, who has emerged as Arkansas’ top shot blocker, with 23, sophomore guard Anthlon Bell, whose 22 three-pointers made lead the team, and sophomore forward Jacorey Williams, who has been a solid bench player this season.

Freshman guard Manuale Watkins and sophomore DeQuavious Wagner only see action near the end of games whose outcomes have already been determined.

This is the 25th 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 one…

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

X – X-factor

Z – Jan. 8