GAME STORY: Arkansas offers valiant road effort (again) but comes up short (again) as No. 1 Auburn claims 67-60 win at home

By Kevin McPherson

Surprisingly better on the road than at home — especially given the landscape of playing in the brutal SEC (a.k.a. the best college basketball conference in a single season EVER) — Arkansas was looking to elevate its away-from-home success to new shock-the-world levels at No. 1 Auburn on Wednesday, but instead the battle-worthy Razorbacks checked up short, 67-60, as the Tigers won on their home court in Auburn, Ala.

On a night when the Hogs were miserable at the foul line (7-of-14 for 50%) and shooting from three (3-of-19 for 15.8%) while getting pounded on the glass (42-29, including 13-4 on offensive rebounds), second-chance-points (16-3), and bench scoring (33-8), Arkansas still managed to take its first second-half lead — 58-57 on senior guard Johnell Davis’ driving layup with 3:06 to play — but the Tigers outscored the Razorbacks 10-2 the rest of the way to ice the win.

Arkansas (15-11, 4-9 SEC, NCAA NET No. 43) has now split Quad-1 road games spanning its last four stops away from home, a run that includes Wednesday’s Q1 loss at top-ranked and league leader Auburn, a Q1 loss at then-No. 8 Texas A&M (69-61 on Saturday), and back-to-back Q1 wins at then-No. 12 Kentucky (88-79 on Feb. 1) and at Texas (78-70 on Feb. 5).

The loss at Auburn (24-2, 12-1 SEC) was the Hoop Hogs’ second game against a No. 1-ranked SEC team this season (their first was a 76-52 road loss to then-No. 1 Tennessee in the league opener on Jan. 4); it was their fifth game against a Top 10-ranked SEC team this season; and it was the program’s second contest against a No. 1-ranked Auburn team in the last four seasons (includes the 2021-22 Razorbacks’ 80-76 overtime home win over the top-ranked Tigers on Feb. 8, 2022).

Auburn was coming off the SEC’s first-ever 1-2 matchup, a 90-81 Tigers’ road win over then-No. 2 Alabama on Saturday.

“We’re up with three minutes to go and they’re the No. 1 team in the country,” Arkansas head coach John Calipari said after the game. “We kind of quieted the crowd a little bit, but that’s why they’re the No. 1 team and that’s why we have the record we have, because we had that against Alabama, we had it against A&M, I can go on and on and on, and we don’t finish people off. That’s what makes them the No. 1 team in the country. They made the plays and they made their free throws.”

Arkansas has split its last eight games evenly as it has moved up from 15th-place in the SEC when it was 1-6 to now slotting at No. 12 in the league, sitting one game behind both Texas and Vanderbilt in the league standings.

The Razorbacks are now 4-7 away from home (that’s 3-5 in true road games, including a 2-5 mark in SEC road games, and 1-2 in neutral-site tilts). They’re 11-4 at home on the season (that’s 10-4 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, including 2-4 in SEC home games, and 1-0 at Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock).

The Hogs are now 3-9 in Quad-1 games (all three wins were earned in games played away from home against teams ranked Top 25 in NET). They’re also 1-2 in Q2, 4-0 in Q3, and 7-0 in Q4.

Arkansas was projected third among the “Last Four In” teams (a.k.a. on the NCAAT Bubble as a play-in 12-seed at-large-bid qualifier) in ESPN’s latest NCAA Tournament Bracketology update that was released on Tuesday.

There’s a possibility that the road loss against the nation’s top-ranked team will NOT do enough NCAAT resume damage to drop Arkansas to the wrong side of the Bubble in the next Bracketology updates. With five more league tilts remaining, the Hogs likely need three more wins to secure an NCAAT at-large bid prior to the SEC Tournament that begins during the second week of March.

It’s been a significant course-correction spanning the last several weeks that has revived Arkansas’ NCAAT at-large-bid hopes following the program’s unprecedented string of five straight losses to begin SEC play.

The loss to the Tigers dropped Arkansas to 38-23 in the all-time series between the two programs, including 13-16 at Auburn.

Next up for the Razorbacks is a return home to BWA for a game against No. 15 Missouri on Saturday, Feb. 22 (7 p.m. CT).

Against Auburn on Wednesday, the Hogs shot 25-of-55 overall from the field (45.5%). Despite its aforementioned troubles in free throw and three-point shooting, rebounding, and second-chance-points, Arkansas finished plus-10 in points-in-the-paint (40-30) while also winning turnovers (11-10), points-off-turnovers (10-8), fastbreak scoring (8-6), steals (10-7), and blocks (5-2).

Defensively, the Razorbacks limited the No. 1 offensive team in the nation (according to KenPom.com’s efficiency ratings) to 25-of-62 overall from the field (40.3%), including a dismal 4-of-24 from 3 (16.7%). The Tigers were solid at the foul line, however, making 13-of-17 (76.5%).

Junior 3/4-combo forward Adou Theiro led four Hog double-figure scorers with 16 points (6-of-13 from the field, including 1-of-3 from 3, and 3-of-6 free throws) to go with 4 rebounds and 1 steal.

Davis had a strong game, contributing 14 points (5-of-9 field goals, including 0-of-2 from 3, and 4-of-5 free throws), 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and 3 steals.

Sophomore guard DJ Wagner had 11 points (5-of-12 field goals, including 1-of-4 from 3, and 0-of-1 free throw), 5 assists, 2 rebounds, 1 steal, and 3 turnovers. Freshman wings Karter Knox (11 points on 5-of-6 field goals, including 1-of-1 from 3, and 0-of2 free throws to go with 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block and 2 turnovers) and Billy Richmond III (8 points on 4-of-5 field goals to go with 4 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block, and 1 turnover) continued to provide efficicent and positive-impact production.

The Razorbacks got a collective ZERO points from its three-headed center rotation.

Sophomore Zvonimir Ivisic, after averaging 21.7 points per game in his last three outings, failed to score on 0-of-10 field goals shooting, including 0-of-9 from 3, although he did contribute 8 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 steals, and 2 turnovers.

Veteran big men Jonas Aidoo and Trevon Brazile continued their low-production parade, combining for 0 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal, and 1 turnover in a collective 18 minutes. Brazile did manage to score a basket for Auburn that he was not credited in the official boxscore.

For the Tigers, front-running SEC Player of the Year candidate Johnni Broome had a double-double — 16 points, 13 rebounds, and 3 assists — while Chad Baker-Mazara (15 points) and Chaney Johnson (14 points) also scored in double-digits.

Calipari started Knox, Thiero, Wagner, Davis, and Ivisic for the sixth consecutive game.

Arkansas was solid at both ends in the early going and led by as many as 4 points, 21-17, but Auburn used an 11-0 run to go up 28-21 before the Hogs responded by outscoring the Tigers 6-5 the rest of the first half to trail 33-27 at the break.

Thiero had 7 points and 3 rebounds, Davis had 6 points, 4 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 steal, and Wagner had 6 points to lead the Razorbacks in the first half.

The Hogs shot 12-of-28 from the field (42.9%), including 1-of-9 from 3 (11.1%), and 2-of-6 from the free throw line (33.3%) in the opening half. Auburn shot 12-of-31 overall from the field (38.7%), including 4-of-14 from 3 (28.6%) in the first half. The Tigers hit 5-of-8 freebies (62.5%) in the first 20 minutes.

Arkansas won points-in-the-paint (18-10), turnovers (7-5), points-off-turnovers (6-2), fastbreak scoring (4-0), steals (5-1), and blocks (4-0) while Auburn won rebounds (23-15, including 6-1 on the offensive glass), second-chance-points (4-0), and bench scoring (13-4) in the first half.