FAYETTEVILLE — With less than two minutes left in the first half of Saturday's exhibition game against No. 15 Gonzaga, the Razorbacks were in trouble.
A 10-1 run from Gonzaga put the Bulldogs up 36-26, and a young Arkansas team that had played a very sloppy half to that point needed a spark in a big way.
Not only did the Hogs get a spark, they got a game-changing 9-0 run to close the first half and another 9-0 spurt to start the second that completely flipped the contest on its head.
Abdou Toure nailed a three to cut Gonzaga's lead to seven and start the combined 18-0 run, while JJ Andrews cut Arkansas' deficit to one with 28 seconds to go in the half and Davion Thompson made a layup 15 seconds into the second half to give the Razorbacks a 37-36 lead.
After Arkansas got out to a 44-36 advantage, Gonzaga finally broke their six-plus minute scoring drought with a triple from Nathan De Sousa.
— Arkansas Men’s Basketball 🐗 (@RazorbackMBB) October 24, 2026
"Really bad offense by us," Gonzaga head coach Mark Few said when asked about GU's inability to score during the run. "Obviously impacted and caused a lot by great defense by Arkansas. Somehow, we ended up on the positive side of the rebounds and in second chance points, but it sure didn't feel like that. Definitely not in that stretch right there."
A big part of Arkansas' second-half performance was how much more crisp the Razorbacks were offensively. While shots didn't start falling in bunches, Arkansas wasn't turning the basketball over as much. After doing so 10 times in the first half, the Hogs only had two turnovers in the final 20 minutes.
"We talked about the turnovers at half, why we had them," Arkansas head coach John Calipari said. "You know, we talked about some of the things, defensive breakdowns that we had."
Gonzaga shot 40.5 percent from the field in the first half and only 30.8 percent from the field in the second half.
While Arkansas allowed Gonzaga to chop its lead down to two late after leading by double digits multiple times in the second half, the Hogs never surrendered the lead. A three from Thompson all but iced the game, which ended with Arkansas on the right end of a 76-72 final score.
In its first game against a comparable opponent, a very young UA team not only fought back after getting punched in the mouth, but punched back.
That resilience will come in handy for the Hogs over the course of the season, and it certainly did on Saturday.
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