FAYETTEVILLE — Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes knew it would take a great effort for his 19th-ranked Volunteers to steal a game at Bud Walton Arena on Saturday.
He got what he wanted for 36 minutes, but it was the last four of regulation that proved to be his team’s downfall in the teams' SEC opener.
Daryl Macon had a career-high 33 points and fellow senior guard Jaylen Barford added 28 as Arkansas rallied from nine down in that final four minutes to force overtime and eventually knock off Tennessee 95-93 to delight of the season-high 18,696 fans in attendance.
“Well, I think it's hard to beat anybody, you know, if you don't play 40 minutes,” Barnes said before pointing out his team’s other two losses this season. “Whether you're playing Villanova in the Bahamas, whether you're playing North Carolina at home, if you don't play 40 minutes against teams that are high-level teams, and Arkansas is a high-level team, I think it's hard to beat anybody if you don't put together 40 solid minutes. Especially being poised.”
“…We played well enough to win and hard enough, but we weren’t poised enough for regulation time.”
It was the sixth straight win for Arkansas (11-2, 1-0) over Tennessee (9-3, 0-1), and its sixth straight victory this season.
Senior Arlando Cook hit a free throw to start the late rally for Arkansas before Macon buried a three. An immediate Tennessee turnover resulted in a Daniel Gafford basket that cut it to 70-67.
“That was a big play, there were a lot of big play situations in the game,” Barnes said. “I thought we had about a two-and-a-half to three-minute space where I didn’t think we were really poised, executing and getting the ball in bounds where we knew what we wanted to do. Two different guys took it out that shouldn’t have taken it out.”
The Razorbacks’ spree turned into a 12-2 run when Gafford - 15 points, 8 rebounds and 5 blocks - dunked off a Macon assist to give Arkansas a 73-72 lead with 45 seconds left.
Jordan Bone hit one of two free throws with 18 seconds left to tie the game before Macon missed a 3-pointer and CJ Jones’ long attempt at a tip at the buzzer came up empty and forced the extra five minutes.
The Vols only had three turnovers in the second half with all three coming during the late stretch that let Arkansas back into the game.
“…We felt if we got in the half court, we could take them off the dribble and get them into ball screens and have them switch it or double, but we didn’t give ourselves a chance a couple of times to get down the court and see if we could score in the half court,” Barnes said.
Macon had 13 of his points and Barford five of his in overtime as Arkansas jumped out to a 89-78 lead with 47 seconds left before Tennessee roared back to cut it to 93-91 with eight seconds left.
Macon then put the game away with two free throws with seven seconds left.
“I didn’t think we handled the ball as well as we could in the backcourt,” Barnes said. “We felt like anytime we got into the half court we could get anything we wanted. Defensively we were good for the most part.
“This is a team that scores a lot of points and the final score of 95 points is deceptive. I don’t think I have ever coached a game where teams scored 42 points in 5 minutes in overtime.”
Tennessee lost starting center Grant Williams with just over two minutes left in regulation and fellow starters Admiral Schofield, Jordan Bowden and Kyle Alexander in the overtime.
Jordan Bone led Tennessee with 21 points while James Daniel had 17, Schofield 16, Williams 12 and Lamonte Turner 10.
“Grant got three tough calls today with the verticality rules,” Barnes said. “Obviously we know what he is. Bowden played 22 minutes due to fouls. We have talked a lot to our team about fouling and cutting back on fouls.
“…I really appreciate the effort that group had at the end. They haven’t played together all year, but they just went out and battled and tried to find a way to stay in the game.”
Barnes, whose team shot 45.1 percent from the floor, lauded the Arkansas crowd and atmosphere.
“Conference play, I am really impressed coming here to play basketball,” Barnes said. “I love Arkansas crowds. It’s like our crowd back home, they love their basketball and they enjoy good basketball.”
Barnes said his game plan was to run with the Razorbacks, who shot 54 percent from the field for the game, made all six of their shots and 8-of-12 free throws in overtime. For the day they were just 21-of-33 from the charity stripe.
“We were going to run as fast as they wanted to run,” Barnes said. “They like to run in transition and we like to run. We weren't going to change anything. We were going to do what we do. We went about our preparation the way we would for North Carolina or Villanova. Nothing changed there.”
Arkansas had 12 turnovers in the game - as many as the Razorbacks have had in the last six games - while forcing Tennessee into 14 miscues.
“One thing with Mike’s teams is they are going to shoot the ball,” Barnes said. “People ask me a lot about ‘why don’t they turn it over?’ Because they shoot it. They are going to raise up and I think his guys feel like if they are open, they are going to shoot the ball and they can get going with it. There is no doubt.”
Barnes, whose team won the rebounding battle 41-34, was asked what he thought about Macon’s effort.
“He is a guy that can get his shot off pretty much any time he wants to and can shoot it deep,” Barnes said. “He does a good job of drawing fouls, too. He knows how to get himself fouled. If you back off of him, he is going to raise up and shoot it.”