Razorbacks lose at Missouri
No. 25 Arkansas dropped its fourth game in a row on Wednesday night falling on the road to Missouri 79-76.
Arkansas appeared set to get its second win of the season over Missouri as they held a 67-57 lead with 5:07 remaining in the game. However, the Tigers then went on a 22-9 run to end the game. Eric Musselman talked about the Hogs losing the double-digit lead.
"I thought our competitive nature tonight was at a high level," Musselman said. "We’re just a basketball team that has not figured out how to win down the stretch. But from a competitive standpoint and playing hard — some of the things we’ve worked on the last few days — our fouling shooting was much improved at 89.
"I just have never coached in a game where four players fouled out. And the opposition shoots 40 free throws. That’s 36 free throws, 36 free throws and 40. We haven’t caught any breaks. Every team’s got to try to create the breaks for themselves."
Kamani Johnson, Jordan Walsh, Makhi Mitchell and Devo Davis all fouled out for the Hogs. The Tigers made 30 of 40 free throws. Arkansas was 23 of 26 at the charity stripe. Another area where the Hogs came up short was turnovers. Missouri scored 31 points off 21 Arkansas turnovers.
"Composure down the stretch, a young team, a lot of new faces," Musselman said. "Critical turnovers around the rim. A critical turnover on the baseline. The 21 turnovers in a basketball game is way too many. Again, we didn’t walk into the building tonight thinking that we’d have four players four out, but that’s what happened. Great job on backboards. Basically doubling them up on the glass. But the turnovers were too much. All you can do is gain experience through this."
As Musselman pointed out, Arkansas won the rebounding battle 42-23. As far as the turnovers, 14 of the 21 came in the first half. The Hogs cut them in half the final 20 minutes.
"Just meeting the ball, being a little bit stronger with the basketball," Musselman said. "I thought in the first half, we were just way too careless with the ball. Didn’t jump-stop enough when we did get a head of steam, had some charges."
The Razorbacks held a narrow 35-34 lead at intermission. The Hogs shot 59 percent in the first half to only 37 for the Tigers, but the turnovers made it a much closer game than it would have been otherwise.