Au’Diese Toney scored a game-high 19 points, Jaylin Williams posted his fifth double-double in his past seven games and Arkansas held on for a 77-68 victory over West Virginia in a Southeastern Conference-Big 12 Challenge matchup Saturday in Fayetteville, Ark.
Williams scored 12 points and snagged a career-high 15 rebounds for the Hogs, who ran their winning streak to six games. Stanley Umude also scored 12 for Arkansas
Arkansas’ J.D. Notae and West Virginia’s Taz Sherman, No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in scoring in their conferences entering the day, struggled for points early.
Notae picked up two early fouls and played only 23 minutes, scoring 15 points with 10 coming in the second half. Sherman left briefly at the end of the first half with an apparent leg issue and also finished with 15 points, nine of them in the second period.
Kedrian Johnson scored 18 points and Malik Curry added 11 for the Mountaineers, who lost their fifth straight.
Free throws made a huge difference with Arkansas, outscoring West Virginia by 13 points in going 28 of 34 from the line. West Virginia was 15 of 21.
Arkansas (16-5, 5-3) more than doubled a nine-point halftime lead to 19 points, 52-33, in the first four minutes of the second period but West Virginia went on a 12-0 run a few minutes later to close to within 54-49 with 12:21 left.
The Hogs got things back together and in less than four minutes were back up by double digits, 62-49, but the Mountaineers weren’t done. They closed to within seven with under four minutes left, but could get no closer. Arkansas led by 11 with just under a minute left.
The Razorbacks jumped out early, taking an 11-point lead, 16-5, in the first five minutes of the game. But they were unable to build on that, thanks mostly to 11first-half turnovers and nearly a seven-minute stretch without a field goal.
The Mountaineers, however, could get no closer than seven points in the period and went to the locker room down 38-29 at the break.
–Field Level Media
