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FAYETTEVILLE — In its first loss of the season, Arkansas couldn’t buy a bucket.

The Razorbacks shot just 26.8 percent and missed from all over the floor, including at point-blank range, in their 81-68 loss to No. 12 Missouri on Saturday.

Perhaps the most damning part of their abysmal shooting performance was going just 3 of 23 (13.0 percent) on layups, according to the UA StatBroadcast system. It was Arkansas’ worst rate of the year, but it wasn’t exactly an anomaly.

Through 10 games this season, the Razorbacks are shooting just 46.2 percent on layups and that includes eight matchups with lesser non-conference opponents. That dips to 20 percent (6 of 30) when looking at just their two SEC games. The rest of the conference is making 56.1 percent of its layups in SEC games.

“It's been a problem with this team all year, our shots around the rim,” head coach Eric Musselman said Monday. “It's not just one game. It got magnified in one game.”

With the season a little more than one-third of the way over, the Razorbacks’ second-year coach has identified layups as an area in which his 9-1 team needs to improve.

The blueprint for accomplishing that goal is pretty simple: take easier shots.

“Knock off the eurosteps, knock off spin…like, (come to) a two-foot jumpstop and put the ball in the hole,” Musselman said. “Go old school on your finishes around the rim, so yes, I have addressed technique, yes, I have addressed knock off the degree-of-difficulty layups.”

That isn’t the only thing Arkansas plans to work on at practice Monday, Tuesday and during Wednesday’s shoot around before its next game.

In addition taking easier shots, Musselman is stressing to his team to make better decisions. Among the ill-advised shots he’d like to see eliminated are the put-back attempts through multiple defenders.

“When you get an offensive rebound and there's three guys with their arms up, you don't try to shoot through six arms,” Musselman said. “You pass the ball out and you spray it around for a quick 3.”

The Razorbacks will need an immediate fix in those areas because it doesn’t get any easier moving forward, as they travel to No. 9 Tennessee for their next game.

After facing a Missouri team that blocked just one shot and managed to hold it to 3 of 23 on layups, Arkansas now must find a way to finish against a team that ranks 20th nationally with 5.2 blocked shots per game and is led by the SEC’s third-leading shot blocker in Yves Pons (2.0 bpg).

“I'm not sure why you miss layups if they had one blocked shot,” Musselman said. “Now you're going against a team in Tennessee that does block shots. … If I was going to pick a game I thought we were going to miss layups, it’d be Tennessee, so we've quickly got to figure out how to score around the rim when you're in the painted area.”

Tip off against the Volunteers is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT Wednesday and the game will be televised on ESPN2.