Arkansas jumped on No. 8 Texas A&M early, but couldn't withstand the Aggies and fell 69-61 Saturday in College Station.

Arkansas (15-10, 4-8) jumped out to an 8-0 lead to start the game. But turnovers helped give the Aggies a chance to come back early and stretch the lead in the second half though Arkansas did rally in the final 20 minutes. A basket by Billy Richmond with 9:24 remaining in the game tied it at 50, but the Aggies regained control at that point. John Calipari was disappointed in the game particularly the 17 turnovers to only 10 for A&M.

"Some were more like, what did you just do?," Calipari said. "And we haven’t done that all year. Just give credit to A&M, they played and pressured and did stuff to make us turn it over. We had one rule going into this game. If you drive baseline, shoot the ball. Shoot it. What we’d do? Turn it over. Didn’t shoot it. We had one rule. You go baseline, I’d rather you shoot it because three things can happen. One (gets answer from crowd). Two, you miss it, because they’re running, you rebound it. Three, they rebound it. Fine. A breakout turnover, they score on. I don’t know if guys were timid, didn’t want to shoot it, missed every shot so stopped shooting it, I don’t know.

"We had a great heart-to-heart in there. We just did. I had them come in the other locker room, like we have some guys that got to play better. Can they put it on minutes? I’m afraid I’m going to come out, can they say that? Come on, say no. Because you’re playing them 35 minutes. Can you say, well I’m afraid I’m going to come out if I make a mistake? Not if you’re playing 35 minutes. That one is off the table. So now, why are you tentative? Why do we have guys that — like again, we miss a couple layups again, which we didn’t miss 10 like we have other games. But we missed a couple that were kind of costly. But, you don’t have to make every open shot."

Karter Knox played well for the Hogs. He topped the Razorbacks with 17 points and five rebounds. Calipari took notice of his play in the 36 minutes he was on the court.

"Karter played good, but you can’t miss every open shot," Calipari said. "Karter played well, Jonas (Aidoo) played well. I thought Billy (Richmond) played well, but he turned it over. But he fought and did pretty good. The reason I didn’t play Z (Zvonimir Ivisic) more, if you were watching the game, why didn’t I play him more?

"Okay, so I just need to know if you’re really watching the game. So, he got scored on, got scored on, got scored on. He doesn’t block, so I got to go with another guy. Jonas played well. Jonas played the way I needed him to play. The surgery set him back, but Jonas played. I may have to play both of those two together to get the offense, to figure out what we’re going to do defensively and how we’re going to play. It means Adou (Thiero) maybe takes a little more of a backseat."

Ivisic scored 13 points, had 6 rebounds and blocked 4 shots. Thiero chipped in 10 points and four boards. Aidoo had 4 points, 3 assists, 1 steal and a block.

The Aggies held a 33-28 lead at intermission. The Razorbacks never had the lead after 10-9 with 12:30 remaining in the first half. Texas A&M (20-5, 9-3) had its biggest lead at 64-53 with 2:45 remaining in the game.

Wade Taylor topped the Aggies with 18 points, 9 assists and 3 steals. Thurie Phelps added 12 points, 9 rebounds and 4 steals. Andersson Garcia had 11 points, 5 rebounds and 2 steals.

Both teams shot 42% from the field, Arkansas nailed 33% from behind the arc compared to 30 for the Aggies. Texas A&M is one of the best rebounding teams in the SEC and won the battles of the boards 35-32 on Saturday.

Arkansas will be at Auburn on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. and televised on ESPN.