Though haunted both times, new Arkansas coach John Pelphrey now has busted two ghosts of Razorback past.

Riding the uptempo rollercoaster in last Wednesday’s 94-91 victory at Walton Arena over the Missouri Tigers coached by Mike Anderson, the 17-year assistant at Arkansas to former Razorback all-time winningest coach Nolan Richardson, Pelphrey’s Razorbacks comparatively crawled, 62-51 past the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles Saturday at Walton Arena.

ORU is coached by Scott Sutton, son of former Razorback coaching great Eddie Sutton.

The tempos of both games reflected the contrasting yet successful styles that Richardson and Eddie Sutton brought to Arkansas and that their disciples carry on at Mizzou and ORU.

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“ Nobody plays like Missouri with speed and constant pressure, ” Pelphrey said. “ Scott’s team is different. They are not going to beat themselves and they are going to be very good with their defense and not give you angles. Offensively, the right guy is going to shoot the ball. ”

Despite Saturday’s 11-point margin compared to Wednesday’s three, Saturday’s victory was no easier to obtain for Arkansas, 6-1, going into Monday’s 7 p. m. game against Missouri State at Walton.

The start was much harder with Arkansas spotting ORU (4-3 ) a 10-0 lead and no Sonny Weems.

The Razorbacks were rescued off the bench. Gary Ervin (16 points ), center Darian Townes (14 points and 6 boards ), forward Michael Washington (7 points and 6 boards and the basket providing Arkansas’ first lead at 12: 05 of the second half ), and freshman guard Marcus Britt (“ he played fantastic defense, ” Pelphrey said ) were Arkansas ’ off-the-bench spark plugs.

Sophomore guard Patrick Beverley (13 points and 3 big shot blocks ) was by far Arkansas’ most significant starter Saturday.

ORU off-the-bench guard Robert Jarvis led all scorers with 18 points, including 4 of 8 deep treys.

“ He was shooting them from the Hog’s nose, ” Ervin said.

Weems, the senior small forward from West Memphis termed Arkansas’ “ most athletic player” by Sutton, was suspended from Saturday’s game because of “ violation of team rules, ” Pelphrey said.

Pelphrey did not specify Weems’ violation nor if Weems would play against Missouri State.

What must Weems do to play Monday ?

“ Please the head coach, ” Pelphrey replied. “ Arkansas deserves a disciplined basketball program. ”

Nothing could have pleased Pelphrey about ORU’s 10-0 start, except that his Hogs really didn’t look that bad, even missing their first nine shots.

“ I think we were ready to go, ” Pelphrey said. “ Oral Roberts just played well. Give credit where credit is due. They came out and they hit us first. You don’t like that to happen in your own building, but it did. The second half our defense did a really good job. ”

Really, the Hogs weren’t bad defensively that first half, either.

“ They had that big 10-0 run, ” Ervin said. “ At the same time, with 7 minutes left in the half, they just had 13 points. ”

Townes and Ervin got Arkansas back in it in the first half.

“ Early, Darian kind of saved us because offensively we couldn’t get anything going, ” Pelphrey said. “ Gary did a good job scoring the ball. ”

Beverley’s trey, his lone basket of the first half, tied it 20-20 at 3: 38, but ORU pulled ahead 29-24 by intermission.

ORU upped it to double digits, 36-26, before Arkansas mounted an 11-0 run including a big stop by Britt, a Beverley trey and Washington’s go-ahead basket at 12: 50.

ORU regained the lead 38-36 but Washington’s trey put the Hogs up 40-38 at 11: 41.

“ We got confident once we got that little 2-point lead, ” Townes said.

Arkansas took its permanent lead with Beverley blocking a shot on one end and assisting Stefan Welsh for a trey on the other for a 47-45 edge at 7: 34.

ORU got a tough break after the Arkansas run. ORU 6-9 big man Marcus Lewis was already part of a double technical foul with Townes as they apparently were deemed jawing too much by the officials. Lewis was ejected for a second T for throwing the ball off the scorer’s table after he tried to save a ball from going out of bounds.

“ I didn’t see the play, but you’re down six, it’s a twopossession game and anything can happen, ” Sutton said. “ But he gets the second technical and our best low-post player is out of the game. They hit two free throws and score on the possession right after that. It’s hard to come back from 10. ”

Did he get an explanation for the T ?

“ Not a very good one, ” said Sutton, whose Golden Eagles mostly won the tempo but not the game.