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FAYETTEVILLE — Auburn erased a double-digit deficit to rob Arkansas of a signature win Tuesday night.

The Razorbacks led by 11 points with less than six minutes remaining, but went cold and failed to make a shot the rest of regulation in their 79-76 overtime loss to the No. 11 Tigers inside Bud Walton Arena.

A layup by Mason Jones with 1:08 left in the overtime period snapped Arkansas’ nearly 10-minute drought without a field goal and pulled it within three points. However, he couldn’t make a tough three-pointer at the buzzer that would have forced an extra five minute.

In addition to that play, Jones - who finished with 40 points - passed the ball on the final possession of regulation, only to see Jalen Harris miss an open three-pointer.

It’s the third straight SEC home game the Razorbacks have lost, dropping them to 16-6 overall and 4-5 in conference play at the halfway point of their SEC slate. Auburn improved to 20-2, 7-2.

Arkansas will try to get back to .500 in the SEC when it travels to Missouri on Saturday. The Tigers (10-12, 2-7) are coming off a 68-51 loss at Texas A&M. Tipoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. and the game will be televised on the SEC Network.

Jones Goes Off, Accepts Blame

It didn’t take long to have an idea Jones was going to make history Tuesday night.

The junior hit three-pointers on back-to-back possessions to score Arkansas’ first six points and carried the Razorbacks the rest of the game.

A free throw with 4:29 left gave him 30 points, making him the first player in UA history to hit that mark in three straight games.

He added three more points in regulation and scored all seven of the Razorbacks’ points in overtime to finish with 40 points on 12 of 24 shooting, including 5 of 12 from beyond the arc. It was one shy of his career-high 41 set against Tulsa earlier this season.

The only other players with multiple 40-point games in their Arkansas careers are Martin Terry (four) and Dean Tolson (two), who did it in the early-70s. Marquette’s Markus Howard is the only other player to accomplish the feat this season.

It was also the second most points an Arkansas player has scored in an SEC game, trailing only Todd Day’s 43 against LSU in 1992.

However, Jones - who came off the floor for just 25 seconds in the 45-minute game - was just 11 of 16 from the free throw line. At 68.8 percent, that is well below his season average (82.0%), which is why he took responsibility for the loss during the postgame press conference.

“The game tonight is on me,” Jones said. “I take full blame for this game. Good players don’t miss free throws and I missed five of them. You put five points on our side and we win this game. That’s on me.”

Jones also had a game-high five assists to go along with three rebounds and two steals.

Lineup Change with Joe Out

About one hour before tip off, Arkansas announced Isaiah Joe would be out “indefinitely” after having arthroscopic surgery on his right knee because of recurring inflammation.

That meant the Razorbacks would be using a third different starting lineup in four games after using the same one in 17 of the first 18.

Much like in the TCU and South Carolina games, head coach Eric Musselman went with a “big” lineup by starting Reggie Chaney and Adrio Bailey. It was the fourth straight start for Chaney and a return to the lineup after coming off the bench against Alabama for Bailey.

The difference between those two “big” lineups and the one Arkansas used Tuesday night, though, was that Desi Sills remained a starter instead of Harris.

Bounce Back by Bailey

One reason Bailey came off the bench in Arkansas’ last game was because he played poorly in the loss to South Carolina, racking up three assists and four fouls in just 14 minutes. Unfortunately, he wasn’t much better against the Crimson Tide, as he was scoreless and committed another turnover in six minutes of action.

Back in the starting lineup, Tuesday was a big bounce back game for Bailey. He scored 11 points - just his third double-digit effort of the season - on 5 of 6 points and pulled down seven rebounds, which was tied for the team lead.

The highlight of the night came with 11:34 remaining, when he finished an alley-oop from Jones to cap a 7-0 run that gave Arkansas the lead.

Raucous Tuesday Crowd

Despite the game being on a Tuesday night with winter weather in the overnight forecast, Arkansas still drew a crowd of 17,196.

It may not have been a sellout like the last several Saturday games and it definitely wasn’t as packed as the Kentucky game, but the fans still made a lot of noise.

At various points during the game - such as the aforementioned alley-oop dunk by Bailey, the back-to-back threes by Jones and Sills that put Arkansas up by nine and the dunk by Harris that pushed the lead to 11 - it sounded like the Bud Walton Arena of the 1990s, when it was routinely packed with 20,000 fans.

Whitt Struggles

Not only did Jones have to fill the void created by Joe’s injury, but he also had to pick up the slack for Jimmy Whitt Jr., the team’s third-leading scorer.

A mid-range extraordinaire, Whitt missed all seven of his shots and was held scoreless for just the second time in his last three seasons. (He failed to score six times as a true freshman at Arkansas.)

The first half was particularly frustrating for the graduate transfer from SMU, as half of his six attempts were blocked. That includes one from point blank after grabbing an offensive board on which Auburn’s Austin Wiley came out of nowhere to swat what appeared to be an easy bucket.

The last shot Whitt took was a mid-range jumper less than 30 seconds into the second half.

He came into the game averaging 15.4 points and fresh off a 26-point performance at Alabama, but he did manage to pull down seven rebounds and notch three steals in 40 minutes against the Tigers.