Max Abmas and Oral Roberts, overlooked until March Madness, have long been on Arkansas’ radar

Oral Roberts, then 3-5, led the undefeated Razorbacks by 10 at halftime Dec. 20 before Arkansas captured the lead midway through the second half and won, 87-76. Max Abmas and Kevin Obanor — who totaled 113 total points in upsets of second-seeded Ohio State and No. 7 Florida in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament — were held by the host Razorbacks to eight total points in the final 11 minutes.

Abmas, the nation’s leading scorer at 24.5 points per game, was held to 11 against Arkansas.

The Golden Eagles (18-10) suffered all six of their defeats against eventual tournament teams to that point — all but Arkansas (24-6, seeded third in the South Region) were ousted by the second round. The Dec. 20 loss was less of a setback than part of a transition as the team hopscotched through a shifting schedule and kept its sights set on its first NCAA tournament berth in 13 years.

“I told the guys all year that not only are we going to win the conference tournament but we’re going to win multiple games in the NCAA,” Oral Roberts Coach Paul Mills said during a news conference Sunday. “A lot of coaches do this, but we talk about winning in March way back in November.”

Abmas (pronounced ACE-miss) was a lightly recruited guard out of Rockwall, Tex., a suburb of Dallas. He admired NBA guards Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard, trying to emulate their range, confidence and ability to create shots, although he spent most of his freshman season playing off the ball and relying on teammates to create chances for him.

That changed this season.

Mills moved the 6-foot-1 sophomore to point guard, and although he did not work out with the team this summer because of the coronavirus pandemic, Abmas intended to help replace the leadership and production lost through six offseason departures.

He averaged just more than 20 points per game through December before Arkansas held him to 11 points and 36.4 percent from the field, his lowest-scoring performance of the season other than a game against NAIA program Southwestern Christian in which he played just nine minutes, scoring eight points.

Mills said Abmas had not settled into his role at that time. His evolution would not take root until third-leading scorer RJ Glasper went down with an undisclosed injury in early February. Since then, Abmas has averaged 29.2 points per game.

“We’re a much different team than we were earlier this year simply because Max is way more ball-dominant than he was previously,” Mills said. “Once our third-leading scorer went down, we told Max that he would have to be more assertive. We had to figure out where these other 11 shots were coming from, and so we’re a different team.”

That team still struggled defensively, a big reason it narrowly missed out on a higher seed and finished fourth in the Summit League, despite featuring two of the conference’s top scorers and its second-best turnover margin. The Golden Eagles rank 286th in the NCAA in scoring defense and 239th in adjusted defensive efficiency by KenPom.com.

Abmas and Obanor, however, have been stellar.

Obanor, a 6-8 junior and a first team all-conference selection, averages 19 points per game and is tied for seventh in the nation in double-doubles (14). That means Obanor and Abmas, the conference player of the year, have accounted for 53.5 percent of the points on the nation’s 12th-highest-scoring team (81.5 points per game). They are the third pair of teammates to each score 25 points in consecutive NCAA tournament games, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

Oral Roberts made its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2008 and earned its first tournament win since 1974 when it defeated Ohio State in the first round. It joins Florida Gulf Coast, which did it in 2013, as the only No. 15 seeds to reach the round of 16.

Obanor, who was recruited by Arkansas, said he is grateful to advance further than any Golden Eagles team in nearly 50 years. That 1974 team defeated Syracuse and Louisville en route to the Elite Eight, where it lost to Kansas in overtime.

With a chance to earn more tournament wins, Obanor said, the current team remains unfazed by its opponents’ seeding or conference affiliation.

“We put our shoes on just as they put their shoes on, so we just don’t look at, ‘Okay, they’re ranked number two,’ or, ‘They have a higher standing, so they’re better than us,’ ” he said. “We just come out with that mentality of if you feel like you’re better than us, just prove it.’ ”