FAYETTEVILLE — After Arkansas Coach John Pelphrey kicked out a glass panel on the Walton Arena scorer’s table, his team began doing the same thing to Auburn.

The Tigers kicked back in the second half, but the Razorbacks held on to win 77-64 Saturday before a crowd of 19, 173.

Pelphrey’s displeasure over Auburn 6-3 guard Quantez Robertson grabbing an offensive rebound and being fouled with 12: 53 left in the first half caused him to kick the scorer’s table with his right foot and shatter the panel with the Razorback logo.

“I’ve hit it harder in practice,” Pelphrey said. “It was a lucky punch.” Robertson’s two free throws pulled the Tigers within 13-11.

“I thought we needed something,” Pelphrey said. “We needed somebody to challenge us. We needed a fight to break out, a hard foul, something to get the whole place buzzing a little bit.

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“ Now, I didn’t kick that thing to try and break it, but I think something did happen there because we went on a run.” The Razorbacks outscored the Tigers 32-12 over an 11-minute span, including 14 points by sophomore guard Patrick Beverley, to take a 45-23 lead with 1: 40 left in the first half.

Beverley said he didn’t see Pelphrey break the glass, but he heard it.

“Coach Pelphrey is an emotional guy,” said Beverley, who scored a season-high 27 points. “If it takes kicking out the scoreboard table to get us going, he’ll do it.

“ He brings a lot of energy and makes us want to play harder.” Arkansas senior guard Gary Ervin said he thought he saw smoke coming from the table after Pelphrey kicked it.

“He probably didn’t mean to kick it that hard, but he wanted to get our attention,” Ervin said. “And he got it.” The Razorbacks’ response turned out to be the game’s decisive stretch.

“You know they’re going to get on runs here,” Auburn Coach Jeff Lebo said. “We talked about that, how if we could hold them to 8-0 runs or something like that we could get the bleeding stopped and have a chance.

“ But they went on that big run in the first half and took away any momentum we might have gotten at that point.” Arkansas (20-10, 9-7 SEC ) took another step toward securing an NCAA Tournament bid while Auburn (14-15, 4-12 ) lost its fourth consecutive game and fell to 1-14 at Walton Arena.

Pelphrey set a record for most victories by a first-year Arkansas coach, surpassing the 19 by Eugene Lambert during the 1942-1943 season, and picked up his 100 th career victory.

It was the final home game for six Arkansas seniors — centers Darian Townes and Steven Hill, forwards Sonny Weems, Charles Thomas and Vincent Hunter and Ervin.

The six combined for 42 points and 29 rebounds, led by Townes, who had 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting and a career-high 14 rebounds.

Thomas had 10 points, Hunter added 7 points and 4 rebounds, Ervin had 7 assists and Hill had 3 blocked shots.

“I’m happy for these young men that they’ve got a beautiful memory now to know they won on Senior Day,” Pelphrey said. “I thought all of them had a chance to contribute.” The scoreboard panel Pelphrey broke was replaced by a maintenance worker with 11: 52 left in the first half, 2: 01 of game time after he kicked it.

“I was surprised how fast they got a new one in there,” Pelphrey said. “I turned around after a timeout and it had been replaced.” Pelphrey didn’t kick the panel again, even after Auburn — which was led by senior guard Frank Tolbert’s 17 points — twice pulled within 10 points in the final minutes.

The Razorbacks put the Tigers away for good on a short jumper from Thomas and dunks by Hill and Beverley to push their lead to 77-61 with 56 seconds left.

“Nobody wants to be remembered for losing on Senior Day,” Thomas said. “You only get one of these, so you want to make it the best you can.

“ We felt the energy from the crowd, and we went out and took care of business.” Arkansas, which has a firstround bye in the SEC Tournament before playing the Vanderbilt-Auburn winner in Friday’s quarterfinals, might already have done enough to gain an NCAA Tournament bid.

Pelphrey said he doesn’t know his team’s situation and won’t speculate.

“That’s for somebody else to debate,” he said. “I don’t have a crystal ball.

“ Just let our play do the talking, and somebody else will make that decision.” Maybe it’s a good thing Pelphrey doesn’t have a crystal ball. He might have broken it Saturday.