KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Arkansas went on a three-point spree early in the second half to surge past Tennessee and take out the short-handed Volunteers 75-65 on Saturday.
A crowd of 14,413 at Thompson-Boling Arena saw the Razorbacks (15-14, 8-8 SEC) post their largest winning margin as a road team in the series, break a five-game road losing streak and notch their fourth-consecutive victory over the Volunteers.
Tennessee (13-15, 6-10) -- playing without Kevin Punter, its leading scorer at 22 points per game, and junior Robert Hubbs -- was a mess from three-point range, converting 4 of 21 shots from beyond the arc.
"I thought our defense was excellent, especially in the second half," Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson said. "I thought we disrupted what Tennessee wanted to do. We wanted to make sure those guys shot jump shots knowing they were minus Punter, who is capable of scoring 30 points."
Arkansas, led by guards Dusty Hannahs and Anthlon Bell, connected on 9 of 19 from three-point range. Hannahs hit 3 of 4 from three-point range and scored 17 points, while Bell made 4 of 6 and scored 16 points. Anton Beard scored 10 points off the Arkansas bench on 3 of 6 shooting, his first 50 percent shooting night since Jan. 23 at Georgia.
"I was just trying to help my team out as much as I can, and I know I can make those plays," Beard said. "I just took the shots, and they went in for me tonight."
The Razorbacks improved to 3-11 at Tennessee while snapping the Vols' four-game winning streak at home and their six-game home winning streak in the series. Anderson's teams had been 0-3 at Thompson-Boling Arena.
"We hadn't won here, so kudos to our guys," Anderson said. "They brought energy from start to finish tonight and the right mindset."
Moses Kingsley was 3-for-8 shooting for 9 points, had 8 rebounds and dished a team-high 4 assists. Jimmy Whitt and Manny Watkins scored six each, and Trey Thompson added five to help Beard and the Arkansas reserves outscore the Tennessee bench 27-9.
"Our bench played really, really well with Whitt, Manuale Watkins. Anton Beard had some big plays for us in that game," Anderson said.
Armani Moore led Tennessee with 17 points, while Admiral Schofield added 15 points and Shembari Phillips had 13.
The game was tied at 39-39 early in the second half on Moore's driving, but Arkansas embarked on its game-deciding run, a 21-10 breakaway over a span of eight minutes.
Kingsley opened the run with a three-point play. Bell and Hannahs made three-pointers during the surge, and Beard converted a three-point play and made a three-pointer for a 58-49 lead. Whitt polished off the big run with a left-handed scoop layup at the 9:02 mark.
Tennessee never pulled closer than seven points.
"In the second half, we looked like a team that was trying to hold on as opposed to a team that was trying to win the game," Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes said.
"Going down the stretch, a lot of teams aren't playing a lot of guys, so they got tired going down the stretch, and we had fresh bodies coming in," said Bell, who was 5 of 11 from the field.
Anderson called on a zone defense after the Vols converted a series of driving layups and got four early foul calls on the Hogs in the second half.
"They were doing a good job of attacking," Anderson said. "We were getting a bunch of fouls called, some hand-checking and all that. I wanted our defense to be intact and make them a jump-shooting team.
"We want to be unpredictable. I mean, obviously we like to press and be up tempo, but I thought we still ran out of that zone. We ran out of it, so it was working."
Tennessee's poor three-point shooting led to a series of long rebounds and runouts for the Hogs, which went right in their wheelhouse and led to a 21-2 Arkansas advantage in fast-break points.
"Early on today, Tennessee wasn't doing the best job of getting back, and we took advantage of that with some easy transition threes, layups, finding Moses down low in the second half in transition," Bell said.
Arkansas improved to 2-8 in road games this season and pulled off a feat Kentucky, Florida and LSU could not do in beating the Volunteers at home.
Tennessee won the rebounding battle 42-33 and beat Arkansas 15-5 in offensive boards, but the Razorbacks still won 12-10 in second-chance points. Arkansas also had just nine turnovers and beat the Vols 10-4 in points off turnovers.
After Schofield scored a pair of back-down buckets against Kingsley to open the game, the Razorbacks went on a tear, with Bell sandwiching a Hannahs' three-pointer with two of his own for a 9-4 lead.
The Razorbacks built a seven-point lead on four occasions in the first half, the first on Whitt's pull-up 15-footer for a 17-10 advantage. The last came on Trey Thompson's free throw with 3:27 left for a 34-27 Hogs lead. Thompson missed the second free throw, Hannahs missed the front end of a one-and-one, and the Razorbacks missed their final four field goals of the half.
Tennessee pulled within 34-33 on Derrick Reese's tip-in, the Vols' fifth offensive rebound of the half, with seven seconds remaining.
Sports on 02/28/2016