FAYETTEVILLE — With Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman in attendance, somebody turned off the jukebox in the second half Tuesday at Bud Walton Arena.
South Carolina came bouncing out of its locker room to some pulsating music and was hyped before en route to taking a 40-33 halftime lead over the Razorbacks.
But Arkansas (13-5, 3-3) outscored the Gamecocks 42-19 in the second half and cruised to a 75-59 win — their third straight after a 0-3 start to conference play.
"They just came at us,” South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. “We just didn’t score in the second half. We scored 40 in the first half; 19 in the second. We’re not playing the Sisters of the Poor here. We’re playing really good basketball teams. These guys are really good. They just beat LSU on the road, who’s a top-10 team in the country.
“They weren’t happy at halftime, Arkansas, and they came out and you could tell with the aggression they played with to start the second half.”
More from WholeHogSports: Full coverage from Arkansas 75, South Carolina 59
Arkansas opened the second half on an 18-1 run to take control.
“They just came out with a sense that, 'This is our home court. We have got to play better and to start the second half,'" Martin said, "and we made some deflating plays on both ends...that just kind of dropped our spirit."
Arkansas won despite not making a three-point attempt. The Razorbacks missed all 11 attempts from beyond the arc, snapping a 33-year, 1,092-game streak with a made three-point shot.
“They are not a great three-point shooting team,” Martin said. “I thought in the first half that our zone was pretty good. I thought in the first half that our man-to-man was pretty good. I really thought we defended fairly well.
“Then in the second half, whether we went zone or man, they just said, 'We are driving the ball and I’m coming.' Heck, they had two plays where they drove the ball against a 2-3 zone from the top and had shots right at the rim. Where’s our stunner? I am still looking for him."
The Razorbacks attacked the rim and made 15 of 30 field goal attempts after halftime. Arkansas also was aggressive defensively after the Gamecocks made six three-pointers before halftime.
"They got after us," Martin said. "Like early in the half, they got after us defensively.”
South Carolina freshman guard Devin Carter made his first start of the season and led the Gamecocks (10-7, 1-4 SEC) with a game-high 20 points, but also had 6 of his team’s 18 turnovers.
“It felt good to get my first start and everything, but obviously didn’t get the win,” Carter said. “Playing in the SEC is definitely more competitive than during the first half of the season. I just had to adjust to it a bit and find where the openings are, and get my confidence the way it was the first half of the season.”
Martin said he started Carter to give his team personality.
"You can’t be any good if your point guard doesn’t have a personality," Martin said. "I mean there’s got to be an aggression there. Jacobi (Wright) is a little beat up. He’s going to keep playing. I trust Jacobi tremendously. But Jacobi’s a little beat up, just with the difficulty of everything that happens in every game. And Jermaine (Cousinard) is just not there. He’s just not there.
“So Devin gave us a personality and that’s what we’ve been lacking. We’ve started every game bad offensively because at the point guard spot we just haven’t had aggression from there. Devin gave us that. Now he’s got to understand what we’re doing better. He’s got to defend better. But at least he gave us a personality there.”
Martin, who took South Carolina to the Final Four in 2017, was disappointed in his veterans.
"Our older players, when you’re on the road, older players have to make the man plays,” Martin said. “They’ve got to make layups, they’ve got to come up with loose balls. They have to get that tough defensive rebound to let everyone know it’s going to be OK, and we didn’t do that in the second half, and it kind of set the tone for how the whole half went.”
Martin joked Monday that he hoped Arkansas coach Eric Musselman, who had rotator cuff surgery last week, would take a couple of Advil and be able to coach.
Musselman, who missed the LSU win last Saturday, was back on Tuesday night — one game earlier than expected — with his arm in a sling.
“It was good to see him out there," Martin said. "It is actually good that he has one arm in a harness so he settles down a little bit.”