NORTH LITTLE ROCK — It wasn’t until well into the second half, but Arkansas finally woke up from its week-long slumber to come out with a win Saturday night.
With no midweek game because of final exams, the Razorbacks showed signs of a hangover from their disappointing loss to Western Kentucky in a sluggish start before pulling away from UTSA 79-67 inside a packed Verizon Arena.
“I think we fought through adversity,” Jalen Harris said. “It wasn’t pretty, but we managed to get through and stick together.”
Isaiah Joe, the sharpshooting freshman from Fort Smith, scored a game-high 21 points for Arkansas, shooting 5 of 6 from beyond the arc and making all six of his free throws in the final 30 seconds to ice the victory.
The Roadrunners actually held a four-point lead with nine minutes remaining, but Reggie Chaney made a jump shot and Joe knocked down a three-pointer following an offensive rebound by Chaney on the next possession. Arkansas never trailed from that point on.
“We just knew that going down the stretch down by four, we had to keep our composure,” Joe said. “We’re put in these situations a lot in practice, so we knew what to expect.”
A key to the Razorbacks pulling away was their defense, as UTSA made just three of its final 18 field goals. That is a stark contrast from how the game started. The Roadrunners actually made six of their first seven and eight of their first 13 attempts, but shot 27.1 percent from the floor the rest of the game.
“We struggled the whole game to get good shots,” UTSA head coach Steve Henson said. “We made some shots, made some tough shots.
“We hung in there despite not having good offensive possessions. Arkansas people talk about their length, their press and their steals, rightfully so, but their rim presence is a factor.”
Meanwhile, Arkansas was 6 of 10 from the floor over that span and was locked in at the free throw line, where it ended the game 27 of 34 (79.4 percent).
Star big man Daniel Gafford also made his presence known in the second half, scoring 11 of his 13 points after halftime and pulling down a career-high 14 rebounds.
“I thought he came out with a different mindset than he did in the first half,” head coach Mike Anderson said. “When you are a player of his caliber, you’ve got to impose your will on other teams. … I love seeing when he started attacking the glass and our guys did a good job of getting it to him.”
Harris was also in double figures with 11 points, but his biggest impact was as a distributor. He dished 10 assists with zero turnovers, becoming the first Arkansas player to notch those numbers since Jabril Durham had 10 and zero against Auburn on Feb. 17, 2016, according to HogStats.com. It was also his second double-double of the season.
The most impressive stat line, however, belonged to Chaney. The freshman replaced Adrio Bailey at the start of the second half and scored 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting while adding five rebounds, four assists, four steals and three blocks.
Anderson said he would have given Chaney the game ball for his performance and Henson credited his defense for limiting his two elite scorers.
“(Jhivvan) Jackson and Keaton Wallace typically just blow by big guys in those situations or freeze them and shoot it, and we couldn’t do that with him,” Henson said. “Defensively, that impacted the game, his ability to space out and then contest those shots and they let him reach in there and poke the ball away from our ball handlers.”
Jackson and Wallace still managed to score 20 and 18 points, respectively, but did so while shooting a combined 32.4 percent from the floor.
Arkansas won’t have to wait nearly as long for its next game. It welcomes Georgia Tech out of the ACC to Bud Walton Arena on Wednesday. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. and it will be televised on the SEC Network.
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