FAYETTEVILLE -- No. 21 Arkansas used a strong second half to defeat Auburn 88-75 on Saturday night before 19,200 fans in Bud Walton Arena.

For Arkansas (19-6, 9-3) it was sweet revenge after losing to Auburn (14-11, 5-7) 95-73 on Jan. 10 in a road game. The two teams have gone opposite directions in recent weeks. Auburn has lost four games in a row while the Razorbacks have won its last three contests since losing to Kentucky. John Calpari was proud of how his team responded after only leading 38-32 at intermission.

"The first five minutes of the second half," Calipari said. "We've been talking about our starts to the game and our starts to the second half. We still started the game shooting 3s. You know what we shot from the floor shooting 2s? 67%."

Auburn was missing Keyshawn Hall who scored 30 points in the win over Arkansas. He was benched the final 12 minutes of the previous game and then the team announced Friday hae was out.

Darius Acuff and Billy Richmond were outstanding for the Razorbacks. Acuff scored 31 points and was 7 of 10 from deep. He also added a pair or rebounds with seven assists with just one turnover. Richmond had his best game in an Arkansas uniform. He scored 25 points, 12 of 15 from the field, and had three rebounds, four assists, two steals and three blocks.

"How about Darius taking over the game?," Calipari said. "How about Billy goat? He plays so hard. He dives all over the floor. He has nothing on his mind other than I'm going to play really hard. He has amnesia. He does not remember play to play."

Arkansas built the lead to 21 points, 57-36 with 14:01 remaining. But Auburn didn't throw in the towel at that point.

"Auburn wasn't going to give it to us," Calipari said. "We had to take it."

Trevon Brazile added 11 points, seven rebounds and four blocks. Meleek Thomas only scored eight points, but pulled down 10 rebounds to lead the team and dished out three assists.'

Arkansas dominated the paint. The Razorbacks outscored Auburn 52-34 in the paint. Another impressive stat was Arkansas' 19 assists and only five turnovers. Auburn did outrebound Arkansas 34-31.

The Razorbacks shot 57% (35-61) from the field. Arkansas also shot 38% (8-21) from deep with Acuff accounting for seven from distance. Brazile hit one for the Hogs.

Auburn was led by Tahaad Pettiford with 29 points, three rebounds and seven assists. KeShawn Murphy added 22 points, 12 rebounds and blocked two shots. Elyjah Freeman had nine points and same amount of rebounds.

Auburn shot 41% (27-66) from the field. The Tigers knocked down six 3-point shots in 19 attempts for 32%. Auburn shot 20 free throws to 15 for the Razorbacks. Both teams missed five free throw attempts.

Arkansas will now be on the road to Alabama (18-7, 8-4) on Wednesday night with a 6 p.m. tip on ESPN. Alabama has now won four games in a row including an 89-75 win over South Carolina on Saturday.