Arkansas made only one shot in the final 10-plus minutes of its first road test of the season at Georgia Tech on Monday, but it was the kind of shot that makes for happy flights back to Northwest Arkansas.
Moments after Yellow Jackets forward James Banks scored the first points of an ugly overtime period to give Georgia Tech a 61-59 lead, Razorbacks guard Mason Jones answered, calling game in dramatic fashion with a long 3-pointer in front of his bench to push Arkansas to 6-0 on the young season.
The junior finished with a game-high 24 points on 7 of 12 from the floor and 3 of 7 beyond the arc. It is the second game-winning field goal of Jones' Razorbacks career. He also helped Arkansas escape Baton Rouge with a 90-89 win over LSU in February. Jones added 22 points in that win as well.
"(Isaiah Joe) passed me the ball and I knew there was three seconds left," Jones said of the final sequence. "I had to do what I had to do, and God blessed me with a banked 3-pointer.
"This is probably one of the best games I’ve ever had in college basketball, not just because I hit the game winner, but just the way we played hard and the way both teams were playing defense," he continued. "We were just getting stops when we needed it, and I felt like we were in March Madness tonight. Even though we were on the road, it just felt like a March Madness game."
Jones was without question the player of the game on the offensive end for the Razorbacks, but it was a team effort defensively that allowed Arkansas a chance to win in the end.
The Razorbacks, just as they did in the first five games of the season, essentially took away its opponent's perimeter threats. The Yellow Jackets finished just 2 of 11 from 3-point range. Bubba Parham, a guard filling in for the injured Jose Alvarado, knocked down both of Georgia Tech's 3s on four attempts.
Through five games, Arkansas' opponents are 13 of 92 (14.1 percent) from deep. Eric Musselman, the first Arkansas coach to win each of the first six games of his tenure since Eugene Lambert in 1942, was ecstatic with the way his group defended the 3-point line and the Yellow Jackets' top weapon - Michael Devoe.
"I'm really, really proud of the defense tonight," added Musselman, who noted his youngest son, Matthew, flew in from San Diego for the game. "The big thing is, again, defending the 3. Just a phenomenal job defending the 3. When you think about (Devoe), averaging 20-something points per game, he gets held to 12 points and then he's got to take 16 shots to get the 12 points.
"That's incredible defense by Jimmy Whitt."
Not only did Georgia Tech never find a rhythm shooting the ball, it committed a whopping 23 turnovers on its home floor. The Yellow Jackets finished the game with a turnover rate of 29.9 percent, according to KenPom analytics. That is the highest figure for a Georgia Tech team since a Jan. 12 win over Syracuse (31.5) and the fifth time in six games this season the Razorbacks have posted a defensive turnover rate of 29 percent or better.
Arkansas currently ranks fourth nationally in that category (29.2 percent). Joe, for the second time this season, finished with five steals to go with a career-high nine defensive rebounds, Jones added four takeaways, and Adrio Bailey, who scored six of his eight points in the first half, tallied two steals.
"When you play an ACC team and they're in their own building - the crowd kind of got into that thing - 23 turnovers by the home team is a lot of turnovers," Musselman said. "Just from a competitive nature, they did a great job. We were really hard-showing on pick and rolls, we got hurt on it late in the game, then we went to switching the pick and rolls, and we had little guys down there fronting and really working on Banks.
"I thought we scraped out some loose balls and did a phenomenal job."
Aside from Jones, Arkansas got contributions from several players. Joe added 13 points, all in the first half, on 3 of 10 from 3-point range, and guard Desi Sills put together the best game of his season, adding 11 points on 5 of 9 from the floor. Three of Sills' scores came at the rim, where he fearlessly challenged Banks, one of the nation's best shot blockers.
He turned the ball over three times, but grabbed five rebounds and dished out a team-high four assists, helping offset a scoreless night from the Razorbacks' bench. Jalen Harris, Jeantal Cylla and Reggie Chaney combined to go 0 of 5 from the floor with two rebounds and two turnovers.
Arkansas returns to action Saturday against Northern Kentucky, which fell 98-96 to Texas Southern in overtime last weekend.
"We hope we have a great crowd at home because our guys are playing their hearts out, they really are," Musselman said. "You want to play hard and you want to win. ... We've got a good plane ride home."