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FAYETTEVILLE — It’s still early, but Arkansas appears to have a much-improved defense in Year 1 of the Eric Musselman era.

The Razorbacks have allowed exactly 43 points in wins over Rice and North Texas, with the latter being a 66-43 victory Tuesday night to improve to 2-0 on the season. Before those games, it had been 12 years since they held back-to-back opponents under 50 points.

“We’re well connected and when we get on the court, we communicate with the game plan, everyone sticks to the game plan,” point guard Jimmy Whitt Jr. said. “No one tries to deviate when it comes to defense, so I think that’s what it gets chalked up to.”

Setting mini-goals is something the first-year coach likes to do for each game and against the Mean Green, that meant not letting DJ Draper and Umoja Gibson beat them beyond the arc.

Draper hit 4 of 7 three-pointers in North Texas’ near-upset at VCU last week and was 7 of 10 on the season coming into the game, but didn’t take a shot against the Razorbacks.

“We felt like we wanted to try to attack him,” Musselman said. “We felt like he couldn’t keep up with our athleticism off the bounce and we fouled him out in 12 minutes.”

Gibson is the Mean Green’s version of Isaiah Joe, as he broke the Conference USA freshman record by making 99 three-pointers last season, but was just 1 of 5 on Tuesday.