A Tale of Two Halves; Arkansas Falls to Ole Miss in Overtime

FAYETTEVILLE – The Arkansas women’s basketball team (17-7, 4-5 SEC) could not finish the job against Ole Miss (18-4, 7-2 SEC) on Sunday, falling to the Rebels in overtime, 76-73. In the first half, Arkansas led 39-20 going into the locker room, while holding the Rebels to 26.5 percent from the field. The story was different in the second half, as Ole Miss outscored Arkansas 44-25, while outrebounding the Razorbacks 25-8. In overtime, Ole Miss outscored the Razorbacks 12-9 to clinch the 76-73 result. Erynn Barnum went on a tear in the loss, scoring a career-high 37 points, which goes down as the seventh most points scored by a Razorback in a game in school history.

Arkansas got rolling early thanks to aggressive play from Barnum under the basket to give the Razorbacks seven of their first nine points of the game, leading 9-2 under three minutes into the game. At the media timeout, Arkansas led 12-4. The Razorbacks were held from the field for nearly four minutes, which allowed the Rebels to roll on an 8-0 run out of the timeout to tie the game at 12-12. Barnum dug the Razorbacks out of their scoring drought with a second-chance layup and a few minutes later, Ole Miss took their first lead of the game off a jumper. With less than a minute left in the quarter, Barnum knocked down a triple, as the Razorbacks led 18-16 after one quarter.

After an Ole Miss basket, Samara Spencer earned her first points of the game off a 3-pointer, as the Razorbacks retook the lead, 21-18. Barnum kept her hot shooting going with another triple and after a Spencer layup, Arkansas went up 26-18 with 6:22 left in the second, forcing Ole Miss to take a timeout. The Rebels scored out of the timeout, but that would be their last basket of the quarter with 6:06 to go in the second frame. Arkansas kept pouring it on, closing out the quarter on a 13-0 run, as Spencer knocked down her second 3-pointer of the game. Barnum came up with another layup and following a bad pass by Ole Miss, Makayla Daniels capitalized with a layup to help Arkansas tally four points in four seconds. The Razorbacks held Ole Miss to just four points in the second quarter, a season low for opponents in a quarter. Arkansas went into the locker room up 39-20.