Arkansas rode a double-double from Trevon Brazile and kept its NCAA Tournament at-large hopes alive with a decisive 90-77 win at Vanderbilt in Nashville on Tuesday.
Brazile tallied 16 points and 14 rebounds. Johnell Davis scored 21 points, Zvonimir Ivisic and D.J. Wagner added 14 apiece and Karter Knox 10 as Arkansas (18-12, 7-10 Southeastern Conference) shot 50.8 percent, a vast improvement from the 28.8 percent the team shot Saturday in a 72-53 loss at South Carolina.
A bigger, more athletic Razorbacks team beat Vanderbilt on fastbreak points (17-5) and points in the paint (48-26). Arkansas also shut down Jason Edwards: The Commodores’ leading scorer (17.2 ppg) missed all 12 of his shots and wound up with two points.
Tyler Nickel scored 16 points to lead Vanderbilt (20-10, 8-9). AJ Hoggard added 14, Devin McGlockton 12 and MJ Collins Jr. 10.
Arkansas trailed by nine in the first half but carried the momentum it gained late in the first half into the second.
Vanderbilt’s problems were compounded when starters McGlockton and Chris Manon both picked up their third fouls with just over 17 minutes remaining.
Less than a minute later, Arkansas took the first double-digit lead for either team (55-42) when Brazile canned a 3-pointer with 16:37 left.
By the 14:56 mark, both McGlockton and Manon had picked up their fourth fouls.
The Commodores never got closer than nine again as McGlockton fouled out with 4:57 left.
A corner 3 from Brazile with 1:33 left made the lead 12.
In the first half, the Razorbacks rode a 13-0 run to a 43-37 lead at the break. They fouled Vanderbilt’s Manon about 80 feet from the basket with a half-second left, and the senior canned a pair of free throws.
Edwards missed all nine of his first-half shots. It was just the second time he had been held below double figures in a game this season.
Arkansas was down its top two scorers, Adou Thiero and Boogie Fland, to injury. But its third-leading scorer, Davis, picked up the slack with 15 first-half points.
Vanderbilt was missing guard Grant Huffman — a part of Vanderbilt’s nine-man rotation — due to injury.
–Field Level Media
