Arkansas lays an egg in Tuscaloosa

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After an ugly showing at LSU earlier this week, Arkansas laid an even worse egg Saturday afternoon.

Despite a career-high 28 points from Moses Moody, the Razorbacks were run out of the gym by Alabama’s hot shooting in a 90-59 loss at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Not only did it drop Arkansas to 10-4 overall and 2-4 in SEC play, but it also snapped its six-game winning streak over the Crimson Tide.

The Razorbacks followed up their 16-point loss to the Tigers by nearly matching their worst loss in SEC history, with the 31-point margin being one point shy of the record - set at Florida in 2011 and matched at Mississippi State in 2016.

“Clearly we’ve got to get a lot better in a lot of different areas,” head coach Eric Musselman said. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us between now and our next game and between now and the end of the season. … We’ve just got to continue to try to get these guys believing in themselves as best we can.”

A few free throws kept Arkansas close for the first couple of minutes, but things quickly spiraled out of control thanks to missed shots and turnovers.

It wasn’t quite as drastic as the 40-6 run that LSU used to build a 31-point lead in the first half Wednesday, but Alabama did have a 14-0 stretch during a 6.5-minute scoring drought by the Razorbacks.

Much like he did a few days earlier, Musselman called three timeouts before halftime, including two in that aforementioned run. Arkansas started the game just 1 of 10 from the floor with eight turnovers.

“I’ve gone back to back games where I didn’t have enough timeouts,” Musselman said. “I usually like guys to kind of play through the flow and we have some quick hitters that we like to do when another team goes on a run, but certainly leadership on the floor is something that’s very, very concerning.”

The only player keeping it from truly getting out of hand was Moody. The freshman ended up scoring 14 of the Razorbacks’ first 15 points.

With less than five minutes left in the half, Jalen Tate got a floater in the paint to fall. It was the first field goal by a player other than Moody, who was 4 of 7 while his teammates missed their first 11 shots.

That pulled Arkansas within 16 points, but Alabama responded with a 9-0 run to extend its lead to 25. Tate knocked down another jumper to make it 42-19 at halftime.

When the dust settled, four different Crimson Tide players combined to make seven three-pointers and they shot 44.1 percent as a team. That was drastically better than the Razorbacks’ 23.1 percent (6 of 26) shooting.

After committing just 19 total turnovers in its first two SEC games, Arkansas averaged 16.3 over the previous three games and those issues continued in Tuscaloosa. The Razorbacks had 12 in the first half, leading to 10 points for the Crimson Tide, and finished the game with 18 turnovers.

Tate and JD Notae, the two primary point guards, combined for half of those turnovers, with six and three, respectively.

“Our point guard play the last two games… We can’t have six turnovers,” Musselman said. “This is our team and we’ve got to continue to work, but certainly direction-wise as a point guard we’ve got to get better.”

Coming out of halftime, Arkansas showed some signs of life, with Moody knocking down a quick three-pointer and then finding Justin Smith for a dunk, but Nate Oats called a timeout - 54 seconds into the half - and it seemed to settle his team down.

The Razorbacks scored much better in the second half, needing less than nine minutes to surpass its 19-point first-half total, but struggled to get any stops at all - much less the consecutive stops needed to dig out of the large hole.

Alabama made 11 of its first 15 shots, including 6 of 8 from beyond the arc, after halftime and ended up shooting 53.3 percent from the floor - and an identical percentage from deep - in the second half.

“Obviously my message or my coaching is not getting through on defending the three-ball,” Musselman said. “A lot of that is we have a lot of guys who are reluctant to guard the three-point line because they’re worried about getting blown by on the dribble because of lack of lateral quickness.”

It was never closer than an 18-point margin and three straight threes - by three different players - in an 11-0 run by the Crimson Tide gave Arkansas a 31-point deficit for the second straight game.

Keon Ambrose-Hylton threw down a dunk over 7-foot-3 Connor Vanover and Darius Miles followed with a three-pointer to make it a 36-point game midway through the second half before the Crimson Tide let their foot off the gas.

Other than Moody, who scored his 28 points on 10 of 25 shooting and was a rebound shy of his second career double-double, it was a rough day for the Razorbacks.

The rest of the team shot just 28.9 percent from the floor, including 1 of 10 from beyond the arc. Tate was the only other player in double figures, scoring 10 points, but he had the aforementioned six turnovers with only three assists.

Back in the starting lineup just 15 days after having ankle surgery, Smith had five points and one rebound in 18 minutes.

Riding a two-game losing streak with a combined margin of 47 points and having lost four of its last five games, Arkansas will try to right the ship when Auburn visits Bud Walton Arena on Wednesday for an 8 p.m. CT tip that will be televised on the SEC Network.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt when you’re losing like we are that we definitely have some players that have lost some confidence and probably the team as a whole,” Musselman said. “The only thing I know is to continue to teach, try to build them up. I think that’s the only thing that you can do.”