Arkansas coach Eric Musselman and junior guard Mason Jones made no mistake about it in their postgame radio interviews: Alabama was a must-win game.
Jones noted that Musselman expressed as much in the two days between the team's home loss to South Carolina - its third straight in SEC play - and its trip to Tuscaloosa, Ala. Players, he said, bought into that, but it didn't look that way early on.
The Razorbacks (16-5, 4-4 SEC) fell behind 12-0 less than three minutes in. Arkansas, though, was the superior team the rest of the way, even without Isaiah Joe, the team's second leading scorer, for much of the second half.
Jones and graduate transfer guard Jimmy Whitt carried the Razorbacks offensively, and Arkansas got complementary efforts from Reggie Chaney and Jalen Harris to snap the skid in conference play and pick up a key road win, its fourth of the season in seven tries.
Three days after dropping 34 points on Frank Martin and the Gamecocks, Jones again poured in 30 points to lead all scorers. He became the first Razorbacks player to finish with 30-plus points in back-to-back games since Jannero Pargo in 2002.
Arkansas radio play-by-play voice Chuck Barrett joked with Jones that he was likely "barely out of the womb" when Pargo's big games happened.
Jones was terrific, no doubt, but he could have had an even better scoring day had he knocked down free throws at his usual rate. He went 6 of 13 at the line and missed 6 of his first 9 attempts. Regardless, he put himself in position to earn SEC player of the week honors for a third time this season.
Alabama, missing arguably its top defensive player in Herbert Jones, did not have an answer at any point for Jones. He mixed up the perimeter jumper with getting to the rim brilliantly. Jones was deadly on catch-and-shoot 3s in the win, knocking down 3 of 4 attempts - 2 of 2 on the right wing.
It appeared Jones regained his touch beyond the arc, too. His four 3s against the Crimson Tide match his most in an SEC game in 2020. He knocked down four each against Texas A&M and LSU, but was 7 of 31 in the previous six games. Going back to the beginning of January, Jones is 11 of his last 20 from 3 when launching on the right wing.
Jones also scored five times off the bounce, including four times moving right. He was too much for Alabama to handle.
Whitt, too, gave the Tide fits. He added 26 points, good for his fourth SEC game with 20-plus points this season. Whitt knocked down 11 of 19 shots and all four of his free throws. He was also 4 of 7 on midrange jumpers. Rather than settling for pull-ups, Whitt often took his defender off the bounce and got to the rim with little issue.
Whitt's personal offensive rating of 133, according to KenPom, is his highest figure since Arkansas' loss at LSU when he dropped 22 points on 9 of 13 shooting.
Also, he turned in arguably his best defensive game of the season, tallying a season-high four steals. The Razorbacks turned 17 Alabama turnovers into 27 points, and outscored the Tide 16-6 in fastbreak points.
Chaney and Harris were instrumental in the win, providing a needed scoring lift as Joe mostly sat after halftime with a sore knee. Harris pitched in a season-high 11 points on 3 of 4 from the floor and 4 of 5 at the line. He hit a critical 3-pointer late in the second half to extend Arkansas' lead to 73-69 with less than three minutes to play.
The 3 came from the left corner, where he was previously 1 of 9 on the season.
All of a sudden, the junior is 5 of his last 11 from 3-point range over the last five games and hit at least one 3 in three consecutive games.
In a game in which Musselman elected to keep Adrio Bailey on the bench for much of the night, too, Chaney rose to the challenge and added eight points and 11 rebounds - five offensive - in 25 minutes. He missed a couple of bunnies around the rim, but you have to give him credit for hitting 4 of 5 at the line. He's been shaky there this season, but he shot with confidence.
In the end, Arkansas recorded its third-most efficient night of the season offensively, according to KenPom, and best mark in conference play (113.0). That comes on a night Joe does not score, missing all three 3-point attempts. Arkansas was outscored by 19 points when Joe was on the floor.
Additionally, while the Razorbacks' defense was not stellar (defensive rating of 107.5), it caused just enough problems for Tide guards Kira Lewis and John Petty. Lewis turned the ball over seven times, and Petty finished with four. Alabama's team turnover rate of 23.4 percent was its second-worst in a loss this season.
We knew things would start to get more and more interesting in the SEC as the calendar turned to February. Following clunkers against Kentucky and South Carolina at home, the Razorbacks have another opportunity to further their case as an NCAA Tournament-worthy team on Tuesday.
Coming in is Bruce Pearl and 19-2 Auburn, which dropped No. 13 Kentucky on Saturday. The Tigers might be a top-10 team on Monday when polls are released.
Thanks to yet another gritty, come-from-behind road win, Tuesday night just got a lot more intriguing.