FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas Razorbacks could have gone scoreless in the second half of their game against Missouri at Walton Arena last week and still beaten the Tigers.
That’s how well the Razorbacks played defense in their 87-43 victory over the Tigers in which the University of Arkansas led 49-15 at halftime.
The Razorbacks (13-5, 3-3 SEC) have continued to play lockdown defense in winning 65-58 at LSU last Saturday and beating South Carolina 75-59 on Tuesday night at Walton Arena.
It’s the first time since 2015 Arkansas has held three consecutive SEC opponents under 60 points when they lost 57-56 at Florida and beat South Carolina 75-55 and Mississippi State 61-41 at home.
“Defense is going to be our calling card this year,” senior guard Stanley Umude said on the Arkansas radio network after the South Carolina game. “If we want to beat people, we’ve got to defend them really well.”
In winning three consecutive SEC games to bounce back from an 0-3 start, the Razorbacks held Missouri to 29.2% shooting (14 of 48), LSU to 38.2% (21 of 55) and South Carolina to 33.9% (20 of 59).
Before losing to the Razorbacks, Missouri shot 49.2% in beating Alabama 92-86. Since losing to Arkansas, the Tigers have shot 47.2% in a 67-64 loss to Texas A&M and 62.7% in a 78-53 victory at Ole Miss.
In LSU’s two previous games before playing Arkansas, the Tigers shot 47.4% in beating Tennessee 79-67 and 50% in a 64-58 victory at Florida.
South Carolina shot 34.7% in losses at Tennessee 66-46 and to Florida 71-63 before playing at Arkansas, but the Razorbacks held the Gamecocks to an even lower percentage.
“I think certainly any good team has to be good defensively,” Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman said. “If you want your season to be meaningful, you’ve got to be good defensively.
“I think it’s just a matter of [the Razorbacks] seeing the film and understanding, ‘Hey, if we do this, A, B, and C, we can have success. And when we don’t do it that way, maybe there’s not some success.’ ”
The Razorbacks got five blocked shots against South Carolina — three from 6-2 senior guard JD Notae to match his career high and two from the 6-6 Umude.
Arkansas senior forward Au’Diese Toney had a season-high three steals, Umude had two and Notae and sophomore forward Jaylin Williams each had one.
The Gamecocks had 11 of their 18 turnovers in the second half after the Razorbacks forced 23 turnovers against Missouri and 16 at LSU.
Arkansas combined for a 65-27 advantage in points off of turnovers in the three games.
“That’s when we’re playing our best,” Umude said. “When we’re running and we feed off [turnovers].”
Musselman said the Razorbacks were showing some signs of improved defense in spurts in losses at Mississippi State 81-68, to Vanderbilt 75-74 and at Texas A&M 86-81.
“If you went back and looked at the recent losses from a scheme standpoint, they were doing much better than we were doing even when we were winning games early on,” Musselman said. “We still have a long way to go, we’ve got to figure out a way to play well Saturday [against Texas A&M].
“I think the focus of the team is better the last three weeks than it has been all year.”
Arkansas outscored South Carolina 42-19 in the second half when the Gamecocks shot 22.2% (6 of 27).
“In the second half, they got after us,” South Carolina Coach Frank Martin said. “We just didn’t score.”
The Razorbacks started the second half on an 18-1 run to take a 51-41 lead as the Gamecocks missed their first 11 shots.
South Carolina didn’t get its first field goal of the second half until the 11:46 mark when Devin Carter hit a jump shot.
“They weren’t happy at halftime,” Martin said of the Razorbacks trailing 40-33. “You could tell with the aggression they played with to start the second half.”
South Carolina hit 6 of 13 three-pointers in the first half, but was 1 of 10 in the second half.
“We talked about wanting to take away airspace on the three,” Musselman said of the halftime message. “We gave up way too many threes in the first half.
“We were able to show them where the threes were coming that we were a half-step off. Our hands weren’t high enough.”