Arkansas coach Eric Musselman and junior guard Mason Jones made no mistake about it in their postgame radio interviews: Alabama was a must-win game.
Jones noted that Musselman expressed as much in the two days between the team's home loss to South Carolina - its third straight in SEC play - and its trip to Tuscaloosa, Ala. Players, he said, bought into that, but it didn't look that way early on.
The Razorbacks (16-5, 4-4 SEC) fell behind 12-0 less than three minutes in. Arkansas, though, was the superior team the rest of the way, even without Isaiah Joe, the team's second leading scorer, for much of the second half.