Bud Walton Arena was booming with energy throughout the first half, as the Crimson Tide led 40-34. This was expected, as a recent 3-1 stretch in SEC play after a 0-5 start gave Arkansas more momentum and also increased its chances to reach the NCAA Tournament––and a win over Alabama would’ve made this a slam dunk.

However, after a first half that featured nine turnovers by Alabama and a stellar 15-point start for Arkansas forward Zvonimir Ivisic, the Crimson Tide locked in coming out of the halftime locker room. Forward Grant Nelson and guard Chris Youngblood led an Alabama brigade that got their team out to an 18-point lead with 12 minutes to go.

The turnovers stopped, the defense clamped down and the Crimson Tide was efficient on both ends of the interior. With the lead still at 18 after six straight points by Alabama forward Mouhamed Dioubate, fans started to hit the exits with eight minutes remaining.

“At the beginning of the half, I thought our intensity was good,” Oats said during the postgame press conference. “I thought we were forcing them to take some tough shots. They took 19 mid-range twos and we didn’t take any…To build the lead we did a good job forcing them to take the type of shots we wanted them to take, we got the shots we wanted to and didn’t turn it over.”

But a switch flipped in Arkansas head coach John Calipari and company shortly after as the Razorbacks proceeded to go on a 12-0 run led by Ivisic, who Oats said “killed us tonight,” and forward Adou Thiero. Alabama was back to turning the ball over and missing opportunities.

“We had some turnovers there,” Oats said. “We missed a couple of shots we should’ve made. We’ve got to make free throws. We had some turnovers on their run and we didn’t do a very good job of guarding some of their actions. They just got downhill and we didn’t have the help where it was supposed to be. We missed some switches we were supposed to have.

“I thought they were starting to run out of energy and then it looked to me like we ran out of some energy. Maybe we need to have some other guys in there, some guys were tired, I don’t know. I’m going to have to look at that film in that last kind of 10 minutes of the game to see what happened.”

All of a sudden, what was an 18-point runaway game turned into an edge-of-your-seat battle in the final couple of minutes as Arkansas trimmed the margin all the way down to three points. Ivisic and Thiero combined for 49 points on Saturday night, 23 of which came in the second half.

“We’ve showed these guys all kinds of end-of-game situations from different teams throughout the country this year,” Oats said. “We’re not playing to win the game, we’re playing to get better on every possession and when you start playing the scoreboard and you don’t play the game better on every possession, that’s the stuff that happens to you.”

There weren’t any glaring differences on the stat sheet that caused the comeback as Alabama finished the game leading in a majority of the categories. But sometimes the numbers don’t reflect how difficult it is to put a team composed like this away.

“They’ve got a bunch of hard-playing guys,” Oats said. “They’ve got some pride. They didn’t have a very good start. Obviously Boogie [Fland] is a really good player, we recruited him, but I think when he went out [with a season-ending thumb injury] it helped to find some holes maybe. Despite how good of a player he personally is, I think it helped to find some roles for some other guys so they can get their rotation a little tighter.

“I think they’re playing hard for each other now. I think they’re tough and physical and Thiero is one of the most athletic and tough players in the league…Calipari teams always play hard on defense and they did an unbelievable job of hanging in the game after going down 18.”