No. 22 Arkansas fell to No. 4 Duke 70-61 on Thursday night in the Chicago's United Center.
Arkansas held a 64-61 with 6:47 remaining in the game, but Duke's Cameron Boozer made a layup was fouled. Boozer completed the 3-point play to tie the game at 64 with 6:13 left in the game. However Duke took a 68-64 lead. John Calipari credited Duke for getting the win.
"It was a physical game," Calipari said. "Sixteen points in the first half were offensive rebounds. You can’t just block out. You’ve got to go get the ball. And you cannot reach with one hand and have it ripped from your hands and they score another basket. And miss a basket and literally don’t attempt to rebound it. And they go back to the first half. We started fighting in the second half. And all of sudden we get up and have a chance to go do something. The issue that I know because I watched the game is they did the same thing in the last 3 minutes they went to Boozer in the last 3 minutes every single time. And there was no matchup for us. There just wasn’t. And we still had a chance to win the game. We’re still learning how to win and what we have to do to finish the game."
The Razorbacks did still have a chance to win as Calipari said. Darius Acuff Jr. hit a jumper to pull the Hogs within 68-66 before Boozer once again made a basket giving Duke a 70-66 advantage. However Meleek Thomas canned a 3-pointer to pull Arkansas within one, 70-69, with 2:58 remaining. However Caleb Foster scored six points and Boozer four while Arkansas scored after Thomas' basket was a pair of free throws by Trevon Brazile.
"It’s disappointing but the kids, we went down in the first half and we could have been down 16 or 17 and all of a sudden you look up and we had a chance," Calipari said. "The start of the second half we go on a 22-6 run. And there was a lot of energy and really responded about some things. And again we’ve got to be able to throw it to the post the ball and they’d change it to make a basket. We’d try and throw it to the post and we had a lot of those that were one-handed. One handed? The game is on the line. We had the the chance to post the ball and we’re still working on it."
Duke shot 49% from the field compared to 41 for Arkansas. The Razorbacks made 10 3-pointers to eight for Duke. However, Duke shot 21 free throws, making 14, to just 11 (making nine) for the Razorbacks. Duke won the battle of the boards 37-29. Duke had a big advantage on second-chance points too winning that battle 25-10.
Acuff topped the Hogs with 21 points and added five assists. Thomas followed with 13 while Billy Richmond and Brazile added 11 points each. Brazile had 11 rebounds and Richmond five.
Boozer topped Duke with 35 points, nine rebounds and three assists. Foster added 15 points, five rebounds and eight assists. Patrick Ngongba also chipped in 11 points and pulled down five rebounds.
Arkansas (5-2) will host No. 6 Louisville Wednesday night at 6 p.m. and televised on ESPN.