No. 10 Arkansas beats Fordham, 74-48
Defense led to offense all night for the No. 10 Arkansas Razorbacks in a 74-48 win over the Fordham Rams inside Bud Walton Arena.
The Razorbacks forced 30 turnovers and turned it into 30 points on their way to a 2-0 start on the season.
Wichita State transfer Ricky Council IV led the Hogs in scoring for the second game in a row, notching 15 points, four rebounds and seven assists (career-high). Freshman Anthony Black added 10 points, six rebounds and two steals in the contest.
The Hogs shot 46% from the field and just 13% from three in the game. They out-rebounded the Rams 38-29.
To make up for less than 40% shooting from the field in the first half, the Razorbacks forced 20 turnovers and turned it into 22 of their 32 points in the first 20 minutes.
Arkansas gained three blocks in the span of about 15 seconds — one from Trevon Brazile and two from Makhel Mitchell, and turned the defense into offense as Jordan Walsh hit a layup to put the Hogs up 9-7 — their first lead of the game at the 13:43 mark.
Council hit a layup with 9:49 left to extended an Arkansas run to 11-0 over the span of seven and a half minutes. The Rams ended their scoring drought with a layup, but the Razorbacks responded with five points, including their first three of the game from Black.
Out of the third media timeout, Arkansas went on a 7-0 run in the span of 30 seconds. Council hit a layup and then two steals turned into transition buckets for the Hogs.
Another steal led to a corner three from Council, which forced a timeout from Fordham and sent Musselman onto the court to fire up the already rocking Bud Walton Arena crowd.
After the under-four media timeout, the Rams went on a 7-0 run to trim the Arkansas lead to 12. Brazile grabbed a rebound and slammed it down, but a little too hard, and he earned a technical from the stripes.
A free throw following the tech and a fadeaway from Antrell Charleton gave the Rams a bit of momentum and cut the Arkansas lead to 32-21 at the break.
Fordham immediately cut the Razorback lead to eight points out of the locker room, but a layup from Brazile put it back to 10. The lead went up to 12 on a thunderous transition slam from Council.
After starting the second half on a 4-0 run, the Rams went without a field goal for the next four minutes. The Razorbacks went on a run that was opposite of Fordham, scoring six in a row across just over a minute to take a 46-29 lead with 14:10 left.
Arizona State transfer Jalen Graham made his season debut for the Hogs at the 11:29 mark and hit a layup right away to push the lead to 21 points. A pair of mid-range jumper from Davonte Davis and Walsh had the Razorbacks up 58-35 at the under-eight timeout.
Back-to-back buckets from Graham were followed by a slam from Walsh to give the Hogs a game-high 26-point lead with 4:11 left. After that, the bench players starting to check in for Arkansas.
A pair of layups from Lawson Blake and Derrian Ford in the final 20 seconds capped off the Hogs' second victory of the season.
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