Battle's, Mitchell's upset effort falls short in overtime
A superb offensive effort led by Khalif Battle and Makhi Mitchell wasn't enough to push Arkansas (15-16, 6-11 SEC) over the No. 16 Alabama Crimson Tide in Coleman Coliseum on Saturday afternoon, as the Razorbacks were defeated 92-88 to close the regular season.
Playing some of the best basketball in the SEC as of late, Battle led the Hogs in scoring again with a 22-point, seven-rebound performance against the Crimson Tide. He shot 5-16 from the field, 1-6 from beyond the arch and a perfect 11-11 from the charity stripe in 37:54 minutes.
"With KB, with him, he’s such a good scorer man," forward Trevon Brazile said after the game. "He’s so hard to guard and when he gets downhill, it’s hard not to foul such a great free throw shooter."
Mitchell has also flipped the switch to another gear to close the season, and the 6-foot-10 forward added 18 points, five rebounds and four blocks during his 26:17 minutes of game action against the Crimson Tide
"Khi, whenever he’s out there rebounding and running the floor, he’s a menace on the floor," Brazile said.
With time dwindling down and tension rising, every shot mattered to close out a nail-biting matchup. Mitchell went to the rim to flush home a crucial dunk, but seemingly got fouled without a call from the referees that could have changed the game.
"That hasn’t happened for us all season long quite frankly," Musselman said. "I saw the body contact … But it’s not worth commenting on, it’s not worth sending things in [to the SEC office]. Alabama beat us, no excuses. But there was contact with Khi."
"What are they going to tell us? That after reviewing it we’ll find out tomorrow that it was missed. But it doesn’t change the outcome of the game."
There's no coincidence that Arkansas' recent improvement of play has matched up with Battle and Mitchell taking the bull by the horns against opponents. If the Razorbacks want to make a run in the SEC Tournament, they'll have to clean up on turnovers and continue putting the team on their backs.
"They’re playing a really good two-man game and we have to clean up our turnovers, certainly," Musselman said. "I mean, we had 10 between those two guys, which we’re putting the ball in their hands and 16 turnovers as a unit, we’ve certainly got to clean that up. But those two guys playing off the elbows and playing in pick-and-rolls have been a hard cover for the opposing teams, whoever we’ve played."
Up next, Arkansas will look to earn a NCAA Tournament bid by fighting through the SEC Tournament next week. The Razorbacks' first game will be on Wednesday against Vanderbilt, with times to be determined.
"We’ll start talking about Vanderbilt as a staff when we get on the plane," Musselman said. "Right now, we haven’t talked about them at all because we had this game on our schedule. We’ll try to get ready for them. They are a team that competes. They’re wellcoached. They understand their roles. They have three stars. We have to do a much better job on their center than we did last game.
"We’ve got to do a much better job on their two guards, Manjon and T Lawrence, and then you’ve got to take away the three with the other guys. That would be some of the game plan stuff we’ve got to do and we’ve got to play much better than we did last game against Vanderbilt."