FAYETTEVILLE — During a news conference earlier in the week, Arkansas coach Eric Musselman said he wished his basketball team could play more exhibition games.
The reason behind that wish was evident Sunday during the first half of an exhibition game against East Central (Okla.) at Bud Walton Arena.
The 16th-ranked Razorbacks rallied to beat the Tigers 77-74. Arkansas' JD Notae made a pair of free throws with 5 seconds remaining and ECU's Romello Wilbert missed a three-point attempt at the buzzer that would have sent the game to overtime.
The Razorbacks performed well below expectations for the majority of the contest. The Tigers led 37-35 at halftime and extended their lead to 60-46 with 11:02 to play.
Arkansas made 29 of 66 field goal attempts (43.9%), but was just 2 of 16 from three-point range and 17 of 29 at the free throw line.
“I am shocked (at) how poorly we shot the ball from the foul line and from three,” Musselman said.
“There's fifth grade teams that can shoot that good from the foul line. We have to improve as a free throw shooting team, and we'll do that. We'll work on it and try to get better at it. When guys step up to the foul line, they have to be composed.”
The Razorbacks went on a 20-4 run to take a 64-62 lead with five minutes to play.
Arkansas extended its lead to 71-65 on Davonte Davis' layup with 3:21 remaining, but ECU answered with a 7-0 run that was capped on a three-pointer by Josh Apple to put the Tigers ahead 72-71 with 57 seconds left.
The Hogs made just one three-pointer in each half. Notae and Chris Lykes were the only Razorbacks to connect from distance.
Musselman said he was so impressed with the team’s pregame shoot around that he scrapped the remaining 15 minutes of the session. However, the successful shooting did not translate to the game.
“You can rest assured that we will never take 15 minutes off our shoot around ever again with this group of players,” Musselman said. “We will probably add on an extra hour of shoot around on game day.”
Musselman elected to go with a lineup of Davis, Notae, Lykes, Au’Diese Toney and Jaylin Williams down the stretch and it paid major dividends.
Davis led the Razorbacks with 20 points and Notae added 17. Apple led all scorers with 23 points.
The margin of victory could have been much more comfortable had the Hogs not struggled at the free throw line. Arkansas made 11 of 16 free throws in the second half, but Davis, Lykes and Notae made six free throws in the final minute to preserve the win.
“We left a lot of points on the table from the free throw line," said Toney, who scored 10 points and had 15 rebounds. "It should have been the reverse way. We should have been up 13.”