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Arkansas had to play most of its SEC opener at Auburn without a starter who Eric Musselman described as the team’s “unsung leader.”

With seven minutes left in the first half, graduate transfer Justin Smith suffered an apparent right ankle injury when he was fouled on a fast break following a turnover by the Tigers.

Smith, a former four-star recruit who played his first three seasons at Indiana, did not play the rest of the night and returned to the bench in a boot. Musselman said he was also dealing with a left calf injury, but he wasn’t sure about his status moving forward.

“I don’t really know, but obviously he was in a boot,” Musselman said. “But it’s next man up. Hopefully he’ll do some rehab and I don’t know what the docs will say once we get home and so on and so forth.”

The Razorbacks have a couple of days off before welcoming Missouri to Bud Walton Arena for their SEC home opener at 11 a.m. CT Saturday, which will be televised on CBS.

Musselman is scheduled to meet with the media at 2 p.m. CT Thursday to preview that matchup and will hopefully provide more information on Smith’s injury. Stay tuned too HawgBeat for updates.

Here are some other notes and tidbits from Arkansas’ 97-85 win over Auburn on Wednesday…

Limiting Powell

Coming into SEC play, Auburn had two primary scorers in Justin Powell and Allen Flanigan, who were averaging 13.9 and 13.8 points.

Although Flanigan - an Arkansas native who played high school ball at Little Rock Parkview - notched a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds, the Razorbacks effectively shut down Powell.