FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Sometimes basketball doesn’t have to be complicated.
Sometimes you pass the ball, somebody else passes it again, a defender gets confused, and the ball goes through the hoop.
On Tuesday night at Bud Walton Arena, that idea worked just fine for Arkansas.
Arkansas rolled past Vanderbilt 93-68 inside Bud Walton Arena, and the score barely did justice to how smoothly things went.
This wasn’t a game where one guy hijacked the offense and dared everyone else to keep up. This was a group effort. A clean one.
The kind of night coaches talk about in August and spend January hoping to see once.
The Hogs finished with 25 assists on 37 made field goals and only seven turnovers.
That stat line alone explains why Vanderbilt spent most of the night chasing cutters and arriving late to shooters. Arkansas didn’t rush. It didn’t force much. It just kept passing until the right look showed up.
John Calipari, who has never been shy about pointing out what he doesn’t like, admitted later the ball movement finally matched what he’s been preaching.
“Our whole idea was sometimes you pass the ball just to pass,” Calipari said. “If you catch it, shoot it, drive it, pass it. When that ball moves and we drive and it’s kicked, we’re really good.”
On this night, they were really good for long stretches. Arkansas jumped out early, stayed in control, and never let Vanderbilt believe a comeback was realistic.
The Razorbacks kept piling on points while spreading the workload evenly across the lineup.
Six Arkansas players scored in double figures. Nobody needed to play hero. Nobody forced the issue. Shots came within the flow, and most of them came after one or two extra passes.
Freshman guard Darius Acuff Jr. dished out five assists. So did Meleek Thomas and Trevon Brazile. Karter Knox added two assists, and Nick Pringle chipped in one. Even the bench contributed to the ball movement, which hasn’t always been the case this season.
Thomas didn’t hesitate to point out how important the assist numbers were.
“25 to seven, that’s big-time,” Thomas said. “Just got the ball moving early, and once we get the ball moving early, we kind of set the standard for the game.”
That early standard never really slipped. Arkansas kept attacking gaps, kicking to shooters, and cutting without the ball. Vanderbilt had trouble keeping up, and the scoreboard reflected it.
One of the more interesting wrinkles came with DJ Wagner. The junior guard came off the bench for just the second time in his career, and it wasn’t because he was struggling. Calipari wanted the ball in his hands more, not less.
“Bringing DJ off the bench was for one reason, I needed to get him going,” Calipari said. “I wanted him to be the point guard. When he went in, he handled the ball so he had the ball more in his hand where he could then start to just go play. He did great.”
It worked. Wagner looked comfortable running the offense, the second unit didn’t stall, and the Razorbacks never lost momentum. Sometimes a small lineup tweak is enough to unlock a smoother rhythm, and Tuesday looked like one of those nights.
The win pushed Arkansas to 14-5 overall and 4-2 in SEC play. It also marked the first time since early January that the Razorbacks won back-to-back games, which matters more than any single box score.
This wasn’t about flash. It wasn’t about hype. It was about execution. Arkansas played like a team that understood where shots should come from and trusted each other to find them.
The Hogs will try to carry that feel into Saturday night’s home game against LSU, scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. tip on the SEC Network.
Whether the assists stay that high remains to be seen. But for one night, Arkansas showed what it can look like when the ball doesn’t stick.
