Trailing almost all night, Arkansas had to grind into Missouri's double-digit lead to give itself a chance in the closing seconds, but ultimately came up short.
After throwing an alley oop to Daniel Gafford to pull the Razorbacks within one and immediately drawing an offensive foul, Jalen Harris had to throw up a prayer at the buzzer and the Tigers held on for a 79-78 victory.
It is Arkansas' second straight loss, sending it back under .500 in conference play at 5-6.
Gafford scored a game-high 26 points, coming into the night with a hot hand while his teammates had a hard time finding the bottom of the net early on. He actually scored the Razorbacks' first 10 points of the game by making his first five shots, compared to the 0-of-10 start by all over Razorbacks before Mason Jones finally broke the seal.
When the star big man went to the bench at the 13:42 mark, Missouri began building a double-digit lead as the Razorbacks’ shooting struggles extended to the second unit.
As soon as he returned to the floor, however, he promptly made two field goals in two possessions. That kick-started an 11-4 run that pulled the Hogs back to within single digits, trailing 30-24.
It wasn’t just early shooting problems that impacted Arkansas’ slow start. Missouri dominated the offensive glass - 12 offensive rebounds to only 10 defensive rebounds by Arkansas - and forced nine first-half turnovers
That resulted in the Tigers having a 14-9 second-chance points advantage and attempting eight more field goals, allowing them to create space and keep the Razorbacks at arms’ length for the remainder of the back of half of the first 20 minutes.
Despite 16 points from Gafford, Arkansas couldn't get a bucket in the final three minutes and trailed 46-36 at halftime. Both teams shot at a similar clip, but Missouri hit 6 of 15 threes while Arkansas made just one of its 11 attempts.
The first 10 minutes of the second half was a scoring match between Isaiah Joe and the Tigers. Joe found his stroke and, at one point, scored 10 consecutive points for Arkansas.
The Tigers had an answer for nearly every bucket, though. Arkansas didn’t make any headway into Missouri’s lead until just before the under-eight media timeout.
Jones scored three points on back-to-back possessions, getting it done the easy way and then the hard way to cut the Tiger lead to 65-61.
The game re-entered a back-and-forth battle, this time featuring multiple converted and-ones from Gafford.
A long ball from Joe inside three minutes to play brought Arkansas to within two. Joe had a big second half, scoring 14 of his 17 points and knocking down 3 of 5 shots beyond the arc. Including the one he hit in the first half, Joe now has 86 this season, breaking Rotnei Clarke's UA freshman record.
Twice in the final two minutes, Harris made a pair of free throws to make it a two-point game again, but each time Missouri answered - once with a Jeremiah Tilmon dunk and once with a phantom foul on Gafford that led to a 1-of-2 free throws by Jordan Geist.
It wasn't until the Gafford alley oop with 11 seconds left that the Razorbacks got closer than that. They tried to run the pick-and-roll again after Harris drew the offensive foul, but Missouri defended it well and his heave toward the basket missed at the buzzer.
Harris finished with six points, five assists and four rebounds, while Jones had 12 points on just 3-of-10 shooting. Tilmon led Missouri with 21 points and five rebounds, with Geist pouring in 18.
Arkansas returns home Saturday to host Mississippi State, another team sitting at 5-6 in SEC play. The Bulldogs took down Alabama 81-62 on Tuesday 81-62 after two consecutive losses last week.
Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on the SEC Network.
BOX SCORE
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