FAYETTEVILLE — It was the worst of halves, it was the best of halves.
Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson saw both of them during his youthful team’s 96-47 exhibition win over Tusculum Friday night before 6,114 fans.
The Razorbacks, who have nine new players on this season’s roster, led just 30-24 at halftime before coming out of the locker room and beating down the Pioneers - who had a whopping 29 turnovers - by a 66-23 margin in the final 20 minutes.
“Now you see why I say I have got to have some patience with this group here,” Anderson said. “Obviously there are some talented guys, but this was their first game against a team other than themselves. And that first half was stage fright or whatever you want to call it. Nerves were going. We ended up having 13 turnovers and they were turning it over, too. It was a turnover-a-thon. That’s what it was.
“But I thought in the second half we kind of settled down and played much better basketball. I thought the ball was moving and people were moving. We had five assists at half and we ended up with 23. So that tells me that we really moved the basketball. Even in the first half, I felt our defense was active.”
Freshman shooting guard Isaiah Joe led the way with 18 points while sophomore Daniel Gafford, redshirt sophomore point guard Jalen Harris, freshman forward Reggie Chaney and freshman guard Keyshawn Embery-Simpson all added 13.
Donovan Donaldson’s 11 points led Tusculum, a school from Greenville, Tenn., that is the state’s oldest university and who will face the University of Tennessee in another exhibition next Wednesday.
The Pioneers jumped ahead 8-0, but Arkansas went on a 16-4 run to take back control of the game.
“I think it was the energy,” Joe said. "We lacked energy and defensive effort in the first half. I think we came out with good defensive intensity and a lot of effort in the second half.”
Joe was 5-of-8 from 3-point range against Tusculum after going 9-of-14 in the Red-White game.
Embery-Simpson was 3-of-6 on 3-pointers and Harris 2-of-3 on a night when the Razorbacks were 11-of-23 overall, including 9-of-12 after halftime.
“(Joe) is a guy that can knock shots down and he gets lost in transition at times and our guys do a good job of finding him, and he does a good job of putting it in the hole,” Anderson said. “They are going to draw attention to him. He is really smooth, has a good basketball IQ and he is going to be a guy that knocks some shots down.
“We have got some other guys that are capable of knocking them down, but it is good to see a guy that is capable of making multiple shots. … What it is going to do is set up him putting the ball on the floor. He can put the ball on the floor and is a pretty good passer as well.”
Chaney added a game-high 10 rebounds and Gafford had 9 as the Razorbacks won the board battle 53-41.
“Reggie was excellent,” Harris said. “We expect that out of Reggie every night. He's an energy guy, runs the floor, gets rebounds and runs the floor very hard. It's hard to find someone like that."
Arkansas was just 8-of-20 from the free throw line in the first half and 13-of-19 in the second half to finish 21-of-39.
The Razorbacks were a woeful 10-of-28 (35.7 percent) from the field before halftime, but a sizzling 22-of-33 (66.7 percent) in the second half to finish 32-of-61 overall (52.5 percent).
“To me this game here served it’s purpose,” Anderson said. “I got a chance to see some guys with lights, camera and action. Some guys performed well, some guys didn’t. But now we get to back practice and clean up a few areas. And one of those areas is we’ve got to be able to knock free throws down. We’re going to be a team that attacks the basket and we’ve got to knock free throws down.”
Arkansas will finish off its exhibition slate with a game next Friday night against Southwest Baptist before opening its regular season on Nov. 9 with Texas in the Armed Forces Classic in El Paso, Texas.