Razorback senior guard Au'Diese Toney (#5) from Huntsville, AL slams home a dunk for two against LSU

at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, AR

Nate Allen

FAYETTEVILLE - The Tony awards the best of Broadway, but this Toney awards Arkansas a trip to San Francisco for its second consecutive basketball Sweet Sixteen.

In a thoroughly defensive second round West Regional game Saturday night in Buffalo, N.Y., Arkansas graduate transfer guard Au’Diese Toney thoroughly defensed New Mexico State Aggies scoring machine Teddy Allen leading Coach Eric Musselman’s Razorbacks to a 53-48 victory at the KeyBank Center.

Winning their West Regional first round game, 75-71 last Thursday in Buffalo over 13th-seeded Vermont and then defeating 12th-seeded New Mexico State, last Thursday’s surprise 70-63 winner over fifth-seeded Connecticut, the West fourth-seeded, 27-8 Razorbacks advance this Thursday at the Chase Center in San Francisco vs. West Regional top seed nationally No. 1 Gonzaga, 28-3.

Gonzaga won West games last Thursday and Saturday in Portland, Ore. 93-72 and 82-78 over 16-seeded Georgia State and ninth-seeded Memphis.

Arkansas would be talking "wait ’til next year" had not Toney covered Allen like those insurance commercials claim they cover your home.

Averaging 19 points, Allen scored 37, including 13 of 13 free throws, vs. UConn. against Toney and some helpful Hogs doubling on the side, Allen needed 16 shots to score 12. His last two points were uncontested with the Hogs up four and two seconds left.

Had they fouled him then it would have put Allen on the free throw line for the first time Saturday.

“I thought we did a great job on Allen,” Musselman told the TNT telecast crew. “All of our guys read about him (Allen) , saw what he did (against UConn). Just incredible. Au’Diese Toney - wow was he phenomenal individually!”

The former NBA head coach, former University of Nevada head coach, and third-year Arkansas coach accelerated Toney superlatives starting his postgame press conference.

“Au’Diese Toney played individually tonight as good as any defender that I’ve ever coached,” Musselman said.

With 6-6 guard Allen leading New Mexico State upsetting UConn before Arkansas took the floor, 6-6 guard Toney knew immediately post Vermont what he would be up against.

“He (Musselman) just said ‘You got a big responsibility. The man can play ball. He is a bucket getter,” Toney said. “So my mindset was just to keep him under control and not let him get loose. I couldn't do it without my guys, you know.”

Allen did know.

“They just doubled basically,” Allen said. “Pretty much whenever I had a ball and any type of attacking position. Credit to them. They had a good game plan.”

New Mexico State Coach Chris Jans concurred.

“Congrats to Arkansas,” Jans said. “They obviously did a good job against us especially on the defensive end.”

The Razorbacks needed all the defense and infrequent fouling they could muster. Against the Aggies’ defense so sticky that Arkansas hit but 14 of 51 field, the outrebounded by 41-34 Hogs survived in part because they held the Aggies to 18 of 53 from the field. Forward Johnny McCants was the Aggies’ surprise scoring leader with 16 points and team-leading 12 rebounds.

Arkansas won with free throw. The Aggies, perimeter oriented (6 of 26 threes to Arkansas’ 3 of 16) only got to the line 10 times. They sank six.

Arkansas drove inside. That helped net 25 free throws. They made 22 including 7 of 8 by senior guard JD Notae. Notae needed them to score a game leading 18 points hitting but 5 of 18 from the field. Notae was huge defensively. He copped eight steals. Arkansas forced 19 Aggies turnovers while committing 12.

Lately in frequent foul trouble, Notae didn’t commit a first half foul Saturday. He committed five in the second half, all charges. Notae fouled out with 1:22 left and Arkansas only up 46-40. At 1:10 the Hogs led just 46-43 on one of Allen’s two treys.

It came down to free throws. Arkansas backup guards Devo Davis, completing a one-and-one with 41 seconds left to make it 48-43. Grad transfer Chris Lykes, 7 of 7 free throws, sank two with 10 seconds left, 50-46 and two with two seconds left cinching it 52-48. Toney added one, fouled with a mili-second after the Aggies turned it over.

Toney only scored seven points. But on a Devo Davis pass Toney dunked with 6:06 left completing a 9-0 Razorbacks run for a 41-33 lead.

Arkansas lost its 26-17 halftime trailing, 33-32 with 8:06 left.

The Hogs stuck on 30 points from Notae’s jumper at 16:13 until sophomore center Jaylin Williams, double-doubling with 10 points and a game-leading 15 rebounds, scored at 8:19. That put Arkansas up, 32-30. Two Williams free throws at 7:55 started Arkansas’ 9-0 run.

“I kept looking up at the scoreboard, and they had 30,” Jans said. “We made a heck of a run the second half. Got the lead eventually, and then they went on a pretty good run, and we could never quite get over top of them after that.”

That “pretty good run” runs Arkansas from Buffalo to San Francisco.