No. 3 seed Arkansas held on to defeat 11-seed Oklahoma 82-79 Friday night at Bridgestone Arena in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament.
It was the Darius Acuff Jr. Show as usual. Fresh off sitting out the final regular season game at Missouri. Acuff scored 37 points, had five rebounds, five assists and three steals while playing the entire 40 minutes. Acuff only had two turnovers in the game. Acuff hit a dagger 3 with 2:27 remaining in the game to put Arkansas up 77-72. Acuff credited John Calipari for the play.
"Nah, it was a set play, but the original play, not take it out, but Coach switched it mid-play and put me inbounds," Acuff said. "That was all him, for sure."
Calipari disagreed with Acuff who should get the credit.
"No, it wasn't me," Calipari said. "That was him (smiling)."
There was 16 lead changes in the game. The Sooners actually led for 20 minutes, 23 seconds compared to just 15:10 for the Razorbacks. The game was tied for 4:27. OU was playing its third game in three days. Calipari was quick to praise both teams.
"We knew it was going to be a hard-fought game," Calipari said. "Oklahoma has won six in a row in this league. Porter (Moser), I told them, he and I have talked on the phone prior to this game, I said, This may be your best job ever of coaching.
"Folks, when you're winning, it's a different thing. When you're struggling, that's real coaching. How do you keep 'em up? How do you get 'em involved? How do you keep 'em believing when you're struggling?"
Arkansas will face Ole Miss, a 15-seed, Saturday at 2:30 p.m. It will be the fourth game in as many day for Chris Beard's team.
"Chris has done the same at Mississippi,' Calipari said. "They're still playing. They were struggling not three weeks ago. I mean, we got some unbelievable coaches in this league. Obviously you're talking Missouri, Oklahoma. Those teams, Texas, they should all be in. If you're in this league and you win seven, eight in a row, like Texas, or you do the things that Missouri did, you should be in."
Since Acuff didn't play against Missouri, he admitted he had to work to not show any signs of his game being hampered by the extra days off.
"It was a lot of work, for sure, training room, gym, whatever it was," Acuff said. "But I was still excited. The guys won a game down in Missouri. That was all I was happy about.
"I wouldn't say I really had rust. I was excited to play. So just playing the game, that was all I cared about."
The Sooners refused to go away. They pulled to within 77-75 with 53 seconds remaining. Then again the Sooners were only down two points, 81-79, with 11 seconds left on the clock. The Sooners immediately fouled Acuff on the inbounds pass. Acuff made one of two free throws with 10 seconds left on the clock and had to survive a missed 3-pointer that would have sent the game to overtime.
Trevon Brazile added 12 points, 11 rebounds, two assists, and a pair of blocks and one steal. Billy Richmond III finished with nine points, five rebounds and two blocks. Meleek Thomas chipped in eight points while Malique Ewin had seven points, four rebounds and two blocks.
"Let me say one thing as TB is walking off, was on the set of the SEC, and the guys, he is the key to our team," Calipari said. "Darius has done this. But if we want to be special, TB does when he does in the second half of this game, and we're really good.
"He's an important piece of this. Malique Ewin was good today. I thought he played well. A couple plays on pick and roll. Back too far, but... He ran the floor, like sprinted, got a dunk. That's encouraging."
Arkansas shot 44% from the field compared to 45 for the Sooners. The Razorbacks hit 38% from deep compared to just 25 for OU. Arkansas barely won the rebounding 38-37.
Moser was proud of his OU team and hopes they get a chance to get into the NCAA Tournament.
"Just want to say to our guys, how they have fought through struggle is as impressive as any college basketball team fighting through any kind of struggle as they did this year," Moser said.
"The number one conference in the country, when we were struggling, they stayed together, showed unbelievable work ethic, character, belief in each other, pushed through hard, started playing some of the best basketball in the country. The last month they've played some of the best basketball in the country. It's a credit to the guys they are to do what they've done and to turning the tide of what they did."
Oklahoma (19-15) was topped in scoring by Nigel Pack with 19 points. Tae Davis and Derrion Reid each had 17 points while Mohamed Wague finished with 13 points. Azavier Brown only had four points, but led the Sooners with seven rebounds and eight assists.
Arkansas (24-8) can help its NCAA Tournament seeding with a win over Ole Miss. The other half of the semifinals is Vanderbilt taking on top-seed Florida at noon. Both games today will be on ESPN.