FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas needed a quality win as it tries to get into the NCAA Tournament and they got that on Saturday night when they defeated No. 15 Missouri 92-85 in front of 19,200 fans in Bud Walton Arena.
The Razorbacks used a strong second half to allow the fans in attendance to leave with a smile on their face. Missouri led 48-41 at intermission, but the Hogs took a 62-61 lead with 10:08 remaining in the game and never trailed stretching the lead to as much as 11, 76-65, with 6:07 remaining in the game. Missouri pulled to within five, but could never any closer late. John Calipari saw his team close a game successfully against a ranked opponent.
"You know, we’ve been close, but today I broke out the ‘refuse to lose,'" Calipari said. "I don’t care what you do, how you do it, refuse to lose. When it’s late in the game, refuse to lose. We had timeouts, we called them instead of throwing the ball away. The other thing that was really… We’re 4-3 the last seven. We lost to the 1-team, the 2-team and the 6 or 7-team. That’s who we lost to, and this team as a top-10 team. If they beat us today, they probably were 8 or 9. So, that was a big-time win, but you know what, now we’ve got to finish. Yes, we’ve won four of seven. 4-3, let’s keep going now. Good win, though."
Calipari saw his team outscore the Tigers 51-37 in the second half. He talked about his halftime message.
"Yeah, they did great," Calipari said. "Look, they still… If you give a kid that can really shoot and you’re late putting up your hand, don’t keep your hand up like to say, ‘my hand was up’. No, no. It was not. He had a free look at the rim. Second thing is, if he gets it off, you’re wrong, so don’t come over and say anything to me. You’re wrong. He has to bounce the ball, and if he doesn’t bounce the ball, then you’re wrong and you shouldn’t be in the game. I thought Jonas (Aidoo) rebounded and did some good things. I mean, they all played pretty well. They all did some good stuff."
In a rarity for this team, all five starters scored in double figures. Zvonimir Ivisic topped the Hogs with 20 points and added four rebounds. Johnell "Nelly" Davis added 18 points, 4 assists and 4 steals. D.J. Wagner had 17, Karter Knox 14 and Adou Thiero 11. Aidoo had six points and five boards.
"When Nelly and DJ, and you’ve got Billy and Karter, and they give us pretty good guard play, wing play, we’re usually pretty good," Calipari said. "Now, Auburn, Z obviously went 0 for 10, but today we made free throws. The stuff we’re working on, they’re carrying over. Do you remember this game last time we played these guys? You guys all asked, ‘why’d you only get to the line eight times and they got 30?’ Well, it’s again, some of it is if you’re playing the right way, then they better make those calls. But we’re attacking the basket. How about this? I know we’re a college team. We’re a team that’s trying to do something special. We’re working on layups every day. And you go, ‘layups?’ Are you not watching our games?
"We’re missing 10-12 layups a game. Layups. So we’re working on it. We were… What I told them at halftime, ‘Guys, we were 1 for 10 — 1 for 10 — from the 3 and it’s a two, three-bucket game, two-bucket game. So just play. We’ll make some shots.’ In the second half we made some shots."
The Razorbacks forced 18 turnovers after only forcing eight the in the first meeting won by Missouri 83-65. The Razorbacks scored 30 points compared to only 14 for the Tigers off turnovers.
"Big," Calipari said. "Bunch of deflections. We had 16 deflections at halftime. 16. That means you're on par to get 30 deflections. You get 30 deflections; you're probably going to win the game. But the biggest thing, what they told you, halftime, there's only one way they beat you is threes and you don't rebound. So, let's rebound and take away their threes and see where this goes. Kids fought. Happy for 'em. All their work and they are spending extra time. They're coming in on their own with coaches and they're doing extra. You got to feel some success. After a while, this isn't, you know– I'm just proud of them because that's a resilient group. And forget about just the expectations from here. How about the expectations in their world? I respect them for what they go through."
Missouri was led by Mark Mitchell with 17. Marques Warrick came off the bench to score 16 points while Caleb Grill added 13, also off the bench. Jacob Crews had 13 and Tony Perkins 10.
Thiero played 26 minutes and was in discomfort. Calipari was asked if any update on Thiero's health?
"Yeah, his back's bothering him," Calipari said and ended his press conference with that.
After several close games against ranked teams recently, but then not able to close them out Davis admitted it was a nice feeling to win.
"We just stayed the course and believing in ourselves and just talking about it and executing the game plan and we got the W today," Davis said.
Missouri (20-7, 9-5) saw its three-game winning streak snapped by the Hogs. Arkansas (16-11, 5-9) will now remain home to host Texas (16-11, 5-9) on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. and televised on ESPN2. Arkansas won the first meeting in Austin 78-70. Texas will be coming off a surprising 84-69 loss to previously winless in the SEC South Carolina Saturday night.
Photos by Craven Whitlow
