After losing four straight games due to some extreme scoring droughts, Mike Anderson switched up the starting lineup, inserting Gabe Osabuohien and Desi Sills in place of Mason Jones and Adrio Bailey, but the change up still wasn't enough to keep the Hogs in the game late against the Aggies. Arkansas fell to 14-13 with the 87-80 loss at home in Bud Walton.
Making his first start as a true freshman, Sills got the game started with a three and the Hogs led for the majority of the first half, but they allowed the Aggies to create a 9-0 run in the last seven minutes that Isaiah Joe spent the last two minutes pulling them out of. Sills finished with seven points, three fouls and two turnovers in a modest 21 minutes.
The Hogs were shooting decently well at 43 percent in the first half, and picked it up to 51 percent in the second, but they went 7 of 12 from the free throw line and it didn't get better in the second half, finishing 15 of 21.
Osabuohien provided juice in his start (and eight points) but racked up four fouls in 16 minutes, no rebounds and two assists.
The Hogs were heavily out-rebounded and the 35-25 board advantage the Aggies had led to an extra five second chance points for them. Anderson's guys were able to create 18 turnovers but only created 20 points off the 18 while A&M notched 19 points off of 12 Arkansas turnovers.
Daniel Gafford had a quiet double-double with 23 points and 13 rebounds but his four sloppy turnovers cast a shadow on the above average performance.
Coming off the bench, Mason Jones was held to just one field goal heading into crunch time in the second half and managed to add nine points. Jones still played starters' minutes but his help came too late.
The Hogs started the second half chasing the Aggies and despite pulling within one with 11:44 to play, they couldn't keep A&M from scoring and couldn't make enough shots to keep up. A&M managed to keep their momentum going even with key players in foul trouble and they earned their largest lead of the night, 11 points, with less than two minutes for the Hogs to catch up. A&M shot at 66 percent in the second half.
Mike Anderson and his guys have just four more conference games to play and they must travel to no. 4 Kentucky on Tuesday.
