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Arkansas weathered a hot start by Georgia before asserting its dominance and extending its winning streak to seven games Wednesday night.
A tight game throughout the first half, the Razorbacks needed less than three minutes to push their lead to double digits after halftime and then cruised to an easy 99-73 win over the Bulldogs at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens, Ga.
It was a one-possession game until Stanley Umude knocked down a 3-pointer just before the buzzer that doubled Arkansas’ lead to 53-47 — despite Georgia making its first five 3-pointers of the game and shooting a scorching 58.3 percent from the floor.
“I was really, really disappointed in the first half with our defense,” head coach Eric Musselman said. “Uncharacteristically in the first half we did not make things difficult (for Georgia). We regrouped in whatever manner at halftime, because I was really displeased with that first half.”
With the Razorbacks playing with a newfound intensity on defense, the Bulldogs cooled off significantly in the second half.
Even though Georgia managed to break Arkansas’ run of games holding its opponent under 40 percent shooting, it shot just 34.5 percent - including 1 of 6 (16.7%) from deep - after halftime. That lowered its field goal percentage to 45.3 percent for the game.
“The first half was bad for us defensively,” Umude said. “Coach got on us at halftime. He really got on us about making it our game. We were kind of playing at their pace in the first half. We just had to do a better job of settling in and getting stops."
Here are a few other key takeaways from the Razorbacks’ victory Wednesday night…
Umude Heats Up
Following the win over West Virginia in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, Musselman admitted he wished he’d played Umude more than the 24 minutes he got in the 9-point win.
The third-year coach corrected that mistake Wednesday night and the South Dakota transfer rewarded him with his best performance in an Arkansas uniform.
Umude scored a season-high 31 points on an efficient 12-of-20 shooting performance that included a career-high six 3-pointers (on 8 attempts), and added 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks. In what has been an up-and-down season, his previous high was 28 points in a loss to Vanderbilt.
“He did a good job of mixing up his game,” Musselman said. “He had a couple turnaround jump shots. He had a couple rim attacks on some isolations. And then obviously, he ran to the right spots in transition to get some transition three balls.”
