TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- First-year University of Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman was not worried about putting a "must-win" tag on Saturday's game at Alabama.
His Razorbacks had lost their last three SEC games by a combined 16 points, had not shot the ball well from the free-throw line, the field or behind the arc, and had a few ailing players.
The Crimson Tide had won eight of their last 11 games with standout guards Kira Lewis and John Petty leading the way.
Yet Musselman, having a good read on his team, told the Razorbacks (16-5, 4-4 SEC) they had to have a win over the Crimson Tide. Arkansas delivered just that, an 82-78 victory in which the Razorbacks overcame a 12-0 deficit in the first 2:40 that caused him to call two timeouts, and a hostile road atmosphere.
The Razorbacks' fourth road win, and third victory when trailing by 11 or more points, kept Arkansas in a four-way tie for seventh place in the jumbled SEC race. A loss would have dropped the Hogs into sole possession of 10th, not where a team that went 12-1 in nonconference play and has strong postseason aspirations, wanted to be.
Musselman touted the reasons he felt comfortable saying his club had to have this game on the heels of home conference losses to Kentucky and South Carolina and a loss at Mississippi State.
"This team, if you look at the body of work, they play hard every night," Musselman said. "Yeah, we lost to South Carolina, but South Carolina also won at Virginia. They also beat Kentucky at home. We lost by two and played bad. I mean, look at our losses. Western Kentucky, we played bad and that was an overtime game. We were up five with 40 seconds.
"The thing that I'm most proud of is that we have formed an identity throughout the league. People know we play really hard. Other coaches do. They're telling their teams that we play really hard. To me that's the greatest compliment you have.
"Obviously this is my first year, but we want to build the foundation that every single night you play us you're in for a ... like you've got to play to beat us."
Alabama didn't play enough.
Sure, the Crimson Tide surged the first few minutes and grew their lead back to eight points early in the second half. But the Razorbacks kept up the defensive pressure that forced Lewis and Petty into 11 of the Tide's 17 turnovers and clearly frustrated them at times.
And Arkansas kept running its set plays, drawing fouls and making enough jumpers, layups and three-point shots to regain the lead again and again. Mason Jones did it all, other than making just 6 of 13 free throws, with 10-of-20 field goal shooting and a 30-point performance for his fourth 30-point game of the year.
Jimmy Whitt Jr. delivered a series of big shots, often on isolation plays against bigger defenders, while scoring 18 of his 26 points in the second half.
Whitt's quick step and fall-away jumper from about 12 feet off the left block against 6-9 Javian Davis with 1:23 remaining might have been the key shot of the night. It gave Arkansas a 77-70 lead and forced Alabama into three-point launch mode in a time crunch.
"Obviously Isaiah Joe was out at the time, so a lot of the attention was on Mason," Whitt said. "I felt like I want to contribute down the stretch and make big plays. I told him, 'If you don't have anything, I'm right there for you in my little area.'
"I felt I had the mismatch on me with the bigs and was just able to come down and hit a couple of big shots, made a couple of big layups, which frees up for Mason because now they have to respect another scorer."
Alabama Coach Nate Oats bemoaned the loss of ace defender Herbert Jones (with a broken left wrist), who he said would have been a logical defensive assignment against Whitt.
"Herb is sort of that lockdown corner that you put on one guy and he just takes him out of the game," Oats said. "We didn't have that. ... You can put Herb in there to cover up everybody's mistakes or for locking a guy up if a guy starts to get off like Whitt did there late in the second half.
Oats tried 6-4 Jaylen Forbes and the taller Davis on Whitt and it didn't work.
"We really had to keep length on Whitt, so Forbes struggled a little with the matchup," Oats said. "We put JD [Davis] on him and he kind of blew by him. He was a little bit too slow maybe, where Herb's long enough and quick enough to stay in front of either Whitt or Jones."
Musselman turned to an infrequently used set to get scoring chances down the stretch.
"We ran a set that we really haven't run much since I've been at Arkansas," he said. "It was a pick and roll with Jimmy Whitt setting it and Mason handling it, and then they were switching. We baited the switch and Jimmy kind of caught it in that 17-foot range and we turned it into an iso[lation]. He's got such a great pull-up game. That was a set that worked well for us, I'd say about the 6 1/2-minute mark on."
Joe, who is dealing with a sore right knee, went 0 for 3, all from three-point range, and was not particularly active in his 22 minutes.
"It's tough right now," Jones said. "When he gets more healthy he's going to be more dangerous and just knowing that everybody stepped up was big. They rose and it was incredible. Coach Muss believes in everybody."
Another piece in the Razorbacks' road win was three-point defense. Alabama, the top three-point shooting team in the SEC at 35.1% made 8 of 31 (25.8%) against the nation's top three-point defense.
"We knew coming in here they're a really good three-point shooting team and really efficient," Whitt said. "We knew we were good at defense. We knew something had to give. We just wanted to make sure that the thing giving was their three-point shooting."
The Razorbacks resume SEC play at 6 p.m. Tuesday against No. 17 Auburn (19-2, 6-2), which has won four in a row, including a 75-66 victory over Kentucky on Saturday, after suffering its only two losses of the season at Alabama and Florida.
Sports on 02/03/2020