Arkansas' basketball season officially opened with Primetime at the Palace on Friday night at Bud Walton Arena.
Arkansas guard B.J. Young had 12 points on Friday night in Arkansas' scrimmage at the Primetime at the Palace event.
The men's and women's teams both scrimmaged and gave fans a look at what the 2012-13 season could hold for both squads. In the men's game, B.J. Young and the White squad won 39-33 over Marshawn Powell and the Red team. Young led the White team with 12 points while Powell topped the Red squad and all scorers with 15 points. Young said it was good to finally get to play some basketball before a live crowd.
"It felt good to get up and down the floor," Young said. "I have been waiting all day. Sleep, wake up, sleep and waking up trying to see if the game is here yet. It just felt good going out there and giving the fans a small sample of what we've been working on."
Young admitted that it was good to see Powell, who missed all but three games last season because of a knee injury, back on the court and playing well.
"It felt so good to see Marshawn out here on the floor," Young said. "He's a great piece to this team and he's going to be a key for this team. He's a veteran on the team and he can bring wisdom to our team. He can help out all the younger guys and I think I can too. I think we're ready to team up this year and try to get it done."
Sophomore walk-on Davion Spivey won the slam dunk contest over Young and three other participants.
"I wasn't even in it at first," Young said. "Until Coach was like 'come on B you're going to give it away?' I was like let me think of three dunks. Davion was ready and he deserved to win."
Arkansas has much more depth than it had last season and also the team looked considerably quicker on Friday than they did last season.
"It looked like it was up-and-down, quick, quick and quick," Young said. "We've got some young fresh legs in here and those guys are ready to run. It feels good knowing those guys are ready to come in here and give everything they've got and lay it all on the line every night and every practice for the team."
Arkansas showed their up-tempo offense on Friday, but the scrimmage was for only 20 minutes. Young though feels this team can keep the same pace for the full 40 minutes.
"That's our ultimate goal to sustain it for the whole game," Young said. "That was just one half and Coach A (Mike Anderson) always tells us there is two halves of basketball. Our ulimate goal is to sustain it for 40 minutes and keep the pressure on."
The women played for 12 minutes with sophomore Calli Berna and true freshman Dominique Wilson leading the way. Wilson and Berna both had 10 points in the game. Arkansas Coach Tom Collen was pleased with how his team played.
"They got out and played hard," Collen said. "We set a good tempo and that's something we've been working on in practice. I was pretty pleased with that.
"Dominique is pretty confident. She made that first shot and it just kept flowing for her. She has a chance to fill a big scoring void for us this year."
