Key takeaways, box score from Arkansas' 58-48 win over Tennessee

Playing in front of a packed Bud Walton Arena with multiple former players in town, Arkansas held serve on its home floor Saturday afternoon.

In a battle of top-25 teams, the No. 23 Razorbacks pulled away down the stretch to win a low-scoring affair 58-48 over No. 16 Tennessee in Fayetteville.

Neither team shot the ball particularly well, but Arkansas made things especially tough on the Volunteers, who were held to a season-low 48 points on just 27.1 percent shooting.

“I’m just going to keep saying it — nobody plays harder in the country than this team does right now, because Tennessee plays as hard as anybody,” head coach Eric Musselman said. “That was a great basketball game to watch if you like physical toughness. It was a battle for loose balls. It was a battle on the glass. Any time you had the ball it was physical.”

The Razorbacks needed all the energy they could get from the sell-out crowd and former players and they used it to their advantage, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

Coming into the game, both teams had been playing defense at a high level in recent weeks against tough competition. That was no different Saturday and it was evident from the jump.

Arkansas guard JD Notae started off the game with a step-back 3-pointer on Arkansas’ first possession, but that was not a sign of things to come offensively. In fact, the Razorbacks missed their next eight shots.

Luckily for them, points were tough to come by for Tennessee, too. Over the final 11 minutes of the second half, the two teams combined for just 23 points and Arkansas took a slim 24-23 lead into halftime.

It remained a close game well into the second half, as Arkansas and Tennessee exchanged blows. The lead changed hands a few times and neither team led by more than four.

“It was just like a boxing match where it’s jab for jab,” Musselman said. “Nobody could throw a knockout punch. There was just no separation for about 37 minutes. It felt like it was going to come down to the last possession to be honest.”

The Volunteers took their final lead on a layup by Josiah-Jordan James, going up 41-40 with a little more than 8 minutes left on the clock. However, the Razorbacks immediately regained the lead on a Davonte Davis 3-pointer that sparked an 11-1 run.

A timeout by Tennessee coach Rick Barnes wasn’t of much use following that stretch. The Volunteers made just two shots in the last six-plus minutes of the game and were never closer than five points the rest of the way.

Even with Notae on the bench after fouling out, Arkansas closed out the victory by knocking down 7 of 8 free throws in the final minute and securing rebounds on the other end.

Here are some other key takeaways from the victory…

Williams does it all again

For the ninth time in 11 games, Jaylin Williams recorded a double-double for the Razorbacks. The big man grabbed 10 rebounds in the first half alone before finishing with a career-high 16. He also scored 13 points and drew four charges in the game, plus added an assist, steal and block.

“He was phenomenal,” Musselman said. “His toughness… They have a really big front line when you look at (Brandon) Huntley-Hatfield and (Uros) Plavic inside, and then they come off the bench with (John) Fulkerson. I mean, he went in there and he was dominant from a defensive rebounding perspective.”

Williams’ previous career high for rebounds was 15 against West Virginia in the Big 12/SEC Challenge last month. The last time an Arkansas player had at least 16 rebounds in an SEC game was March 9, 2019, when Daniel Gafford had 16 against Alabama.