By Otis Kirk

No. 9 Arkansas playing its first game without Trevon Brazile overcame a slow start to defeat Oklahoma 88-78 in the BOK Center Saturday in Tulsa.

While the Sooners got off to a fast start and took their biggest lead of the game, 21-12, on a Grant Sherfield field goal with 12:21 remaining in the first half, the Hogs fought back. Arkansas' Ricky Council IV stepped up on Saturday and topped all scorers in the game with 26 points, including 17 in the first half. He helped the Hogs to a 43-40 lead at the intermission to get Eric Musselman's Razorbacks the win.

"First off I have say I appreciate Coach Muss again," Council said. "Last game I was a little under the weather and we had a conversation after the game. I felt I let my team down even though we came out with the win. They believed in me all night and we came through."

In the win over NC Greensboro, Council only had eight points. Following the win over the Sooners Council talked about what it means to have a new coach who believes in him even after an outing where he didn't play his best.

"It means a lot having that trust in me," Council said. "Just means a lot. I’ve always wanted a coach. We didn’t necessarily go to me. I just found my way early and stayed constant the whole game."

After the Sooners blew out to the nine-point lead in the first eight minutes, Council talked about how the Hogs stayed composed to come back and get the win comfortably.

"It was kind of a major run on their part," Council said. "Every time I boxed out my guy trying to get a rebound, the ball would go up in the net. We just had to get stops. But we stayed constant throughout the game, stayed closed and we just made a push in the second half and that started us getting over the hump."

Musselman also talked about Arkansas being able to weather the hot start by the Sooners.

"We didn't talk much at all about offensive adjustments," Musselman said. "When we looked up at like the 13-minute mark, I think they had missed like three or four shots. Just talked about how we needed to defend better, and then at halftime we switched up our pick-and-roll coverage. We really haven't done much switching or what we call touch switch where you don't switch unless there's contact.

"For a team that's only played that plan B coverage in practice, I thought they executed it really, really well because I was concerned, we just had not done that much this year if at all. I thought we tried to take away their perimeter three-ball as well. We gave up some dribble-drives, but that's what we were willing to concede instead of giving up three-point shots."

The Hogs took their biggest lead of the game at 71-55 on a basket by Makhi Mitchell with 8:38 remaining in the game. The closest OU could get after that was within nine a few times. Council talked about recognizing the mismatches he had on him at times during the game.

"Yes, I was fortunate the whole night," Council said. "I felt like I was an enforcer tonight and found out I had five assists which I didn’t know.  I know I did a couple of kickouts to Nick (Smith Jr.) and a couple of passes down low and making the right play at the right time."

Smith finished with 21 points. Jordan Walsh had 12 points, three rebounds and two steals in what was one of his best games this season. Mitchell added 10 points, six rebounds, four assists, two blocks and a steal. Anthony Black played a complete game adding eight points, four rebounds, five assists, one block and two steals. Council was asked if the other players had a sense of needing to step up with Brazile out?

"Of course," Council said. "Jordan Walsh stepped up tonight. We’ve been telling him all year you’ve got to step up. We felt we knew that was going to happen. And we might have lost without him stepping up tonight."

Musselman agreed with Council about Walsh's game.

"I thought Jordan was phenomenal tonight, I really did," Musselman said. "It was interesting. I got up really early to workout at the hotel workout room. We had breakfast at 8:15, and I'm going to assume Jordan was in there about 7:30 stretching with Dave Rich. It's a good sign when somebody is up well before the team breakfast and mentally getting himself ready. He was on the treadmill for a few minutes and then got a really good stretch.

"Offensive rebounding with aggressiveness. I thought he was really good defensively keeping the ball in front and contesting threes. So, I thought it was Jordan's best game thus far and hopefully he continues to grow as a player. I think he felt really comfortable out there today, too."

Walsh has seen his season be up and down to this point, but Saturday's play seemed to help his confidence.

"It’s good, but obviously the work’s never over," Walsh said. "It’s a good feeling to see myself do it because now I know that it’s possible. It’s not just a special occurrence. Like, it’s possible. So now I can go into the next game with the mentality like, ‘Oh okay, you’ve done this before. You can do it again.’"

Walsh hit a 3-point shot with 17:36 remaining in the opening half to give the Hogs a brief 7-6 lead. Did hitting the first shot and it being a trey give his confidence a boost?

"For sure," Walsh said. "It always makes you feel good when you see one go in. So that was good. Then Coach Muss was in my ear talking about, ‘Keep shooting it. Don’t stop. We need it.’ So I was pretty confident."

The Sooners were led by Grant Sherfield with 23 points followed by Milo Uzan 15 and Jaden Hill 11.

Arkansas (9-1) will be at Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock on Saturday, Dec. 17, to host Bradley at 3 p.m. Oklahoma dropped to 7-3 following the loss.