Arkansas @ Texas A&M preview
Reed Arena
Last Meeting ( Mar 7, 2020 ) Arkansas 69, Texas A&M 77
No. 24 Arkansas aims to extend a pair of streaks Saturday night when it visits Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.
The Razorbacks have won four in a row and seven straight in the Southeastern Conference. The positive run in the SEC is Arkansas' longest such streak since it won seven consecutive games in the 2014-15 season.
Davonte Davis scored 18 points and Justin Smith added 15 on 7-of-9 shooting from the floor to lift Arkansas (17-5, 9-4 SEC) to a 75-64 victory over Florida on Tuesday.
"You've just got to give him the ball and say, ‘Go make a play,' sometimes," Smith said of Davis, who made 7 of 14 shots from the floor. "He's definitely bailed us out time and time again this season.
"Right now he's playing his best basketball. And he's playing confident, which is really important."
Arkansas also is playing its best basketball. Earlier this week it moved into the Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first time in three years.
"I mean, it's nice, but to me it doesn't mean anything because all it adds is a target on your back," Smith said of the ranking. "So if you start worrying about what number you're ranked at, you start worrying about the wrong things.
"The only thing that really matters is if you win the next game. You just keep winning games."
Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman said his team took the initiative in its bid to "defend the ranking."
"I think (the players) understood. I heard from a little bird that they had their own group chat and they were even talking about it, (as in) ‘Let's come to practice ready,'" Musselman said.
Moses Moody averages a team-best 16.2 points per game, although he made just 3 of 14 shots from the floor versus the Gators.
Moody will look to find his range against Texas A&M (8-7, 2-6), which has been idle since Jan. 30 due to either COVID-19 concerns or -- in the case of Thursday's scheduled game versus No. 8 Alabama -- travel issues caused by inclement weather.
"It's a virus, and it can impact anybody," Aggies head coach Buzz Williams told the Bryan-College Station Eagle earlier this month. "It's almost like it's a ghost. You can't see it. You can't touch it. You can't (say), ‘Oh I'm about to get COVID.' It's chasing a ghost. You just try and be as safe as you can and follow all the protocols. We have been very stringent in how we've handled things in our office and how we've handled things in our facility."
Emanuel Miller paces Texas A&M with team-leading totals in points per game (14.8) and rebounds (7.7).
Quenton Jackson, who averaged 9.5 points, scored 14 in the Aggies' 77-69 victory over Arkansas in the 2019-20 regular-season finale in March.
The SEC rivals initially were slated to meet on Feb. 6 before the game was postponed due to COVID-19 issues.
--Field Level Media