FAYETTEVILLE -- Darius Acuff Jr. scored 31 points to lead No. 20 Arkansas past upset-minded LSU 85-81 Saturday in Bud Walton Arena.

LSU held a 37-33 lead at halftime and was taking the fight to Arkansas with points in the paint. John Calipari talked about the slow start by his Razorbacks.

"We weren't very good in the first half," Calipari said. "The reason is they had more emotion and they were more locked in than we were. I was stunned we were only down four."

Calipari also credited the fans who turned out on a very cold, snowy day in Fayetteville to cheer the Razorbacks on to the win.

"Wow, I was thinking all day we'll have 2,000 here," Calipari said. "I walked in and thought this is crazy. To do this, you are impacting this program and impacting these games."

The Razorbacks outscored LSU 52-44 in the second half, but Calipari still didn't like some of the things happening in the final 20 minutes.

"We had spells again," Calipari said. "Every time we tried to steal the ball they scored. Just stay in front. Their guard that came back, the (Dedon) Thomas kid makes them totally different. They only had one loss while he played."

Acuff was 13 of 19 from the field and 4 of 7 from deep for the game. Calipari admitted he went Acuff late to get the win.

"I put the ball in his hands and said get away," Calipari said. "Then they started double teaming him. Tried to come after him. The play after the timeout I told TB (Trevon Brazile) throw the dagger. He threw the dagger. He's capable of that."

Brazile's 3-pointer gave the Razorbacks an 84-79 lead with 49 seconds remaining in the game. Brazile scored seven points and led the team in rebounds with seven. He also added an assist and three steals.

Arkansas shot 57% (34-60) from the field and 45% (10-22) from deep. Amazingly Arkansas was only 7 of 18 from the free throw line. LSU made 22 of 25 free throws. LSU only shot 20% (3-15) from deep and 46% (28-61) from the field. LSU won the rebounding 36-28, but the Arkansas bench outscored them 24-12. Thanks to a strong second half the Razorbacks narrowed the point paints to just 42-36 in favor of the visitors.

Acuff added two rebounds, six assists and a pair of blocks to his point total. Meleek Thomas added 14 points while Billy Richmond Jr. came off the bench to add 11 points.

Thomas topped LSU with 18 points, four rebounds and five assists. Mike Nwoko and Max McKinnon each added 14 points, Pablo Tomba had 12 points and 10 boards while Marquel Sutton chipped in 11 points.

Arkansas (15-5, 5-2) will now hit the road to Oklahoma and face the Sooners at 6 p.m. on Tuesday night televised on ESPN. LSU (13-7, 1-6) still has the one lone SEC win. Oklahoma (11-9, 1-6) fell to Missouri 88-87 in overtime on Saturday.