Alabama blew a pair of 13-point second-half leads but held on to beat Arkansas 68-67 in a Southeastern Conference game Saturday in Tuscaloosa, Ala., ending the Razorbacks’ winning streak at nine games.
Noah Gurley’s short jumper from the lane with 27 seconds left gave the Crimson Tide (16-9, 6-6) the decisive points, and JD Notae’s missed 3-pointer from the corner in the closing seconds saddled the Razorbacks (19-6, 8-4) with the loss.
JD Davison led the Tide with 11 points and Jaden Shackelford added 10 as the Tide’s only double-figure scorers.
Sophomore Jaylin Williams scored a career-high 22 points for the Razorbacks and added 10 rebounds for his seventh double-double this season, and Stanley Umude added 19 points before fouling out with 3:32 left.
Notae, the SEC’s leading scorer entering the game, was held to 12 points, all in the second half. He played only 24 minutes because of foul trouble.
The Tide quickly expanded a five-point halftime lead into double digits to start the second half, jumping to a 48-35 cushion just over five minutes into the half and were still up by 13 at 57-44 with 10:28 to play.
But the Razorbacks rallied and actually took a couple of late one-point leads, the last one at 67-66 on Notae’s free throws with 48.5 seconds remaining.
Notae picked up his second foul less than four minutes into the game, and Umude joined him on the bench just past the midpoint of the first period, and Alabama took advantage to build a 28-18 lead. The Razorbacks closed that gap to 28-27 when the Tide went almost four minutes without a field goal.
But the Razorbacks went into a shooting drought of their own, making only one of their last six field-goal attempts of the first half to finish it 11 of 35 (31.4 percent), and Alabama led 37-32 at the break.
–Field Level Media
