FAYETTEVILLE -- If Arkansas is to salvage a winning basketball season, now is the time and Walton Arena is the place.
The Razorbacks (12-13, 5-7 SEC) face Auburn (9-15, 3-9) at 6 tonight in Walton Arena, the first of three consecutive home games.
Arkansas continues its homestand against Missouri on Saturday night and LSU next week.
Including the regular-season finale against South Carolina, the Razorbacks play four of six games at home along with road trips to Tennessee and Alabama before the SEC Tournament.
Walton Arena -- where Arkansas is 11-2 this season -- should be a welcome sight for the Razorbacks after they lost 78-46 at Mississippi State and 76-60 at Ole Miss last week.
"I told our guys it's time for us to really come together and put a great stretch in, but the most important one is the next one you're going to play," Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson said. "Auburn is the biggest game on our schedule right now."
The Razorbacks are 1-11 away from Walton Arena, with seven of those losses by four or fewer points, including three overtime games.
"We had been playing pretty decent on the road -- not the winning basketball that I talked about -- until this last sequence," Anderson said. "So maybe the road kind of took its toll on this team.
"Hopefully, for our guys, they're in their own beds and a place they're familiar with, and we can get to playing a lot better."
Arkansas shot 26.4 percent (34 of 129) against Mississippi State and Ole Miss, including 16.6 percent (5 of 30) on three-point attempts.
Starting guards Anthlon Bell, Dusty Hannahs and Jabril Durham combined to shoot 9 of 59 in Mississippi.
Bell, averaging a team-high 16.2 points, shot 6 of 29. Hannahs, who went scoreless at Ole Miss to drop his average to 15.8 points, shot 2 of 15.
"There's not a whole lot of room for error for this team," Anderson said. "So when you've got those two guys struggling ... I mean, we can survive with maybe one guy struggling, but when you've got two of them, it really puts a lot of pressure on the other guys and on our bench."
Anderson said Hannahs needs to do a better job of moving without the ball.
"Sometimes you can guard yourself, and I think that's been the case with Dusty sometimes," Anderson said. "You've got to be able to really put yourself in position to get open."
Durham, averaging 6.2 points, made 1 of 15 shots against Mississippi State and Ole Miss.
"Jabril had some great looks," Anderson said. He's got to knock them down."
A big problem for the Razorbacks' offense was a lack of transition scoring opportunities.
Anderson said he hopes that can be fixed by speeding up Auburn and feeding off the home crowd.
"We got popped on the road a couple of times and sometimes that can wear on your confidence," Anderson said. "So for our guys it's an opportunity for us to play with that energy we're capable of playing with and get the game in an uptempo setting."
Anderson said it was "unbelievable" how poorly the Razorbacks shot at Mississippi State and Mississippi considering they're averaging 79.5 points per game.
"But it just shows you that shooting can come and go," he said. "The thing I have really stressed to our team is our defense.
"It's got to be the difference-maker and we've got to get the game going up and down the floor."
Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl said he's expecting Arkansas to apply pressure defense with the Tigers down to eight scholarship players.
"I'm sure they're probably licking their chops a little bit trying to go at us without a true point guard," Pearl said. "So as a team, we're going to have to do a good job of taking care of the basketball, breaking pressure and getting into some half-court sets."
Anderson said the Razorbacks didn't force the tempo in last week's games and let their shooting struggles affect their defensive intensity.
"That's what I want our guys to understand -- you can't be as good as your jump shot," Anderson said. "If you're as good as your jump shot, what else do you bring to the team? So we've got to get more guys that are doing more things."
Anderson said he doesn't believe the players have lost confidence.
"This team has always performed well when adversity comes," he said. "Last week was one of those bumps, so let's see if we can get over that hurdle and get ready for this stretch drive.
"There's three weeks left in the season and you want to be playing some of your better basketball right now. Are we playing it right now? That remains to be seen. But this week here is going to be really critical for our team."
Sports on 02/17/2016