By Matt Jones
Special to the Arkansas News Bureau
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas hit on all cylinders Monday night, hitting lights-out from the floor and holding the opposition to a season-low from the field in a 71-53 win over Delaware State at Bud Walton Arena.
Freshman forward Marshawn Powell scored 21 points and added nine rebounds as the Razorbacks posted their first two-game winning streak of the season.
“I was just trying play as physical as possible going to the block,” Powell said. “I found myself earlier in the season fading away and getting away from my game and the reason they recruited me to come here. I’m just trying to get back to it and do work on the block.”
Consequently, Arkansas (4-5) relied heavily on its inside game throughout the night with Powell, Mike Washington (8 points) and Delvon Johnson (7 points) leading the way.
The outside game worked well, too. Arkansas hit 8 of 13 shots from beyond the arc, led by four makes from Rotnei Clarke, who finished the game with 14 points.
For the game, Arkansas shot a season-best 65.9 percent (27-41) from the field.
“We felt like we could capitalize a little bit if we could get just a little bit of movement, do some switching and get the ball inside,” Arkansas coach John Pelphrey said. “I thought Marshawn did a good job on the dribble-drive a couple of times. I think for us it wasn’t so much about offense, it was being able to defend and rebound, and get out on the break. That’s where we had a lot of success.
“We talked about letting our defense and our rebounding be our best offense tonight.”
It worked as the Razorbacks held the Hornets to just 29 percent shooting from the floor and forced 11 turnovers.
Arkansas capitalized with 21 points off the miscues and outscored Delaware State 11-2 in transition. Perhaps most importantly the Razorbacks held the Hornets’ leading scorer Frisco Sandridge scoreless.
The Razorbacks led 34-23 at halftime. Delaware State trimmed that lead to six points at 36-30 early in the second half, but it was as close as the Hornets could get.
Arkansas used a 14-2 run over a 5-minute, 38-second span to build a 54-35 lead on Marcus Britt’s trey with 6:49 remaining.
“We switched the defense up a little bit and were communicating and talking, and pointing,” Clarke said. “We were really working as a team on the defensive end. We didn’t allow many second shots and that was big for us to get out on the break and get something going.”
Arkansas never trailed after taking an 11-2 lead out of the gate, led by nine points from Powell before the first media timeout at 15:39.
The Razorbacks rotated a season-high 11 players and got 23 points off the bench. Senior guard Stefan Welsh added a season-high six assists.
“It’s really helping us,” Clarke said of the added depth. “The last game it really helped us and allowed some guys to get their legs back and it really helped us throughout this game. We don’t have guys playing excessive amounts of minutes now. We’ve got guys that can step up and do things as well. It’s big to have those guys back.”
Arkansas now starts a nine-day break for final exams and won’t return to the court until Dec. 16.
“It’s definitely good for us,” Clarke said. “We don’t like not playing but it’s good for us going into finals getting our rest and maybe getting our legs under us a little bit and rehabbing, and get focused for this next game coming up.”
UAB Game Time Changed
The start time for Arkansas’ Jan. 2 home basketball game with Alabama-Birmingham has been changed to 11 a.m., in order to accommodate the Razorback football team’s 4:30 p.m. kickoff in the Liberty Bowl that same day.
The game will be televised by the Razorback Sports Network.
