IN THE LANE:

Poor free-throw shooting performance costly for Arkansas.

FAYETTEVILLE — In a battle of two of the top three free-throw shooting teams in the SEC, No. 10 Kentucky outdid the University of Arkansas during the Wildcats’ 73-66 victory at Walton Arena on Saturday.

Arkansas, which entered as the third-best freethrow shooting team in the conference at 75.2%, had one of its worst games by going 20 of 30 for 66.7%.

Kentucky, the top freethrow shooting team in the SEC at 76.8%, was 20 of 27 (74.1%) from the line.

The Razorbacks were a mess in the first half, going 3 of 8 from the foul line, including 1 of 3 from guard Mason Jones, who entered as the SEC’s second-best free-throw shooter (91.2%) behind Kentucky’s Immanuel Quickley (93.3%).

Adrio Bailey and Jones missed the front end of oneand-one opportunities late in the first half. Bailey finished 1 of 6, while Jones went 8 of 12.

“I missed four free throws, Adrio missed five free throws,” Jones said. “We’ve been a good free-throw team all year. We just, we blew it. It was on us.

“If you look at it, three and five, that’s eight points. We lost by seven. Me being one of the best free-throw shooters in the SEC, that’s unacceptable. Adrio going 1 for 6 is unacceptable, but we’ve just got to live and learn.”

Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman was frustrated with the poor free-throw shooting.

“I thought our free-throw shooting really hurt us,” he said. “I can’t really answer why we missed foul shots. But we left points on the board, and we missed some front ends of one and ones. And that can’t happen.”