FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas guard Jalen Harris credited his work with a pair of Razorbacks support staffers for his game-winning teardrop over the outstretched arm of Ole Miss forward Dominik Olejniczak on Saturday.
Harris' shot with 5.9 seconds left to set the 74-73 final score was exactly what he and graduate assistants Velton Kennedy and Trey Thompson work on routinely in practice.
"They always teach me to get the ball high or it's going to get blocked, so I just went with my instincts, put the ball in the air and it went in," Harris said. "It felt pretty good. Knowing I've been in those situations a lot and haven't really executed, coach still has faith in me to keep the ball, so it feels good."
His game-winner, which snapped Arkansas' six-game losing skid, was the cherry on top of his best floor game in nearly a month. Harris was one assist shy of his third points-assists double-double - 10 points, nine assists - and finished well in the lane, an improvement from February when he made just 8 of 28 shots in the painted area.
And for the second game in a row, he only turned the ball over once.
"That is what he was doing earlier in the year," Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said of Harris, whose nine assists were spread to five players and accounted for 22 points. "So it was good to see him come out and have that kind of game.
"We needed him to play well.”
Harris said that he felt as if he had been letting the team down of late with his play and not bringing the energy or the pace needed to play the brand of basketball Anderson wants. In the four games following his 10-assist, one-turnover game at Missouri, Harris turned the ball over 10 times and it didn't sit well with him.
"I've been slowing the ball down, so I really haven't been playing Hog ball," said Harris, whose father, Mark, was in attendance Saturday. "I've been going slow, so just to get the ball pushed up the floor and finding my guys today, it felt real good.
"It's a real good feeling, knowing that (my dad) has been on me to keep my head up and knowing I've been struggling as of late, so just for him to be here it was a big deal."
Sophomore guard Mason Jones was also key in Arkansas' 40-point second half. Jones finished with a game-high 22 points - 16 in the second half alone - and rediscovered his touch from beyond the arc, knocking down 6-of-8 3s.
Since hitting 5-of-11 3-point attempts in the Razorbacks' loss to Mississippi State on Feb. 16, Jones made just 3 of his next 17 from distance in losses to Auburn, Texas A&M and Kentucky, including an 0-of-6 night against Auburn. After the Auburn game, he found himself out of the starting lineup for the first time in his Arkansas career.
Daniel Gafford, Harris and Anderson all said, though, that Jones hasn't pouted since moving to the bench. Saturday, he turned in his seventh 20-point game of the season and fifth in SEC play behind four second-half 3s.
"Mason took charge," Gafford said. "Mason was one of the main reasons where we got our flow going and had momentum because he came down and knocked down shots that basically blew the roof off Bud.
"The crowd got into it, then we got into it to help him out."
Ole Miss coach Kermit Davis said his players had poor awareness of Jones throughout the game, losing him in transition often. They weren't as physical with him as he would have liked either.
"Mason being the player that he is, we know he can get hot in a hurry just like Isaiah, so if he hits two then we know to go to him again," said Harris, who found Jones on one of his nine assists. "Keep going to him until it doesn't work anymore.
"He didn't fail today."