The scouting report on Auburn wasn't complicated. Get out to shooters - namely Bryce Brown and Jared Harper - run them off the 3-point line and force players to make things happen off the bounce.
To put it lightly, Arkansas did not do that and got punched in the mouth in the game's opening minutes and suffered its most lopsided loss of the season. Auburn knocked down 17 3-pointers - tied for the most made against any Arkansas team - and raced to a 79-56 win to hand the Razorbacks their second four-game losing streak in SEC play.
Prior to this season, Arkansas had never lost four consecutive games in Mike Anderson's seven-plus year tenure.
The Tigers opened the game by knocking down five of their first six 3-point attempts and just piled it on from there. Auburn grabbed a 22-1 lead on the backs of six 3s from five different players and never looked back.
Bruce Pearl's club went on two separate 13-0 runs in the first half and, after the second, Arkansas found itself down 39-9.
Auburn led by as many as 33 points with under 16 minutes to play.
"Oh, man, they came out with guns blazing," Anderson said of Auburn in his postgame interview on the Razorback Sports Network. "And it's something we talked about, running those guys off the line and they came out knocking shots down, then we couldn't make any shots on our end.
"Now, all of a sudden, you've got a big deficit you've got to overcome."
In the first three games of Arkansas' most recent losing streak, Arkansas' starters had been about the only reliable options Anderson had. The group outscored opponents 81-73, shot 40 percent from 3-point range and, defensively, held South Carolina, Missouri and Mississippi State to 25 percent from deep.
On Wednesday, the Razorbacks' starters came out flat and uninspired and appeared lost and rattled following the Tigers' hot start. Each of Arkansas' starters was at least minus-17 when on the floor.
Isaiah Joe, who actually led the Razorbacks with 14 points, was a team-worst minus-25. Daniel Gafford was minus-23.
Anderson and his staff were so fed up with the first-half effort they elected to open the second half with Desi Sills, Keyshawn Embery-Simpson and Gabe Osabuohien in the lineup in place of Jalen Harris, Mason Jones and Adrio Bailey, who did not play in the second half.
That group had played only 10 possessions together all season prior to Wednesday.
Arkansas' offense was as anemic as its defensive performance was wanting. Joe took a career-high 18 shots to get to 14 points. He finished 4-of-14 from 3-point range. The rest of the team was a combined 0-of-12 from deep.
Gafford added 10 points and eight rebounds but was a nonfactor. The loss marked the second time in SEC play he's scored 10 points or less in back-to-back games. Gafford was not effective, but was far from the problem. Arkansas' guards failed to show up on the offensive end.
Jones and Harris combined to shoot 2-of-14 from the floor and 0-of-7 from 3-point range. Jones failed to reach double figures for the fifth time in conference play, one game after scoring 30 against Mississippi State.
As the team's second-leading scorer, that just can't happen. For the game, the Razorbacks finished 4-of-26 from deep and 32.8 percent from the floor.
"You've got to make shots, and we had some open looks, but we didn't knock them down," Anderson said following the game.
It's no mystery that Arkansas has been an average to below-average offensive team for a majority of the season despite playing the 15th-fastest pace in the country. Following Wednesday's game, the Razorbacks are 11th in the SEC in offensive efficiency, scoring 99 points per 100 possessions.
To add insult to injury, Arkansas' offensive efficiency rating of 76.2 against Auburn is its second-worst night of the season in that regard and third worst in Anderson's tenure.
That's right: two of the three worst offensive games of Anderson's tenure have happened since January.
"It was a case where we couldn't make the right thing take place tonight for our basketball team," Anderson said. "At the same time, I thought we played a little on our heels."
Before wrapping up his postgame interview, Anderson asked fans to show up, show out and give the Razorbacks "a shot of adrenaline" on Saturday when Arkansas hosts Texas A&M, which has suddenly won three of its last four in league play.
He added that this team is still in the hunt for something, although he wasn't exactly sure what. Anyone who's watched Arkansas over the last week and a half is in the same boat.