Ricky Council, Jalen Graham share how Arkansas pulled away in second half

Ricky Council IV and Jalen Graham may not have started this weekend’s game for Arkansas against Florida but they knew the importance of momentum. Esepcially in the second half, where the Razorbacks outscored the Gators by 13 points to turn a close game into a blowout.

Arkansas won 84-65, and the two bench stars said the energy from the first group to play in the second half was key to the victory.

“The first group out there came out with a lot of energy and scoring but most importantly stopped,” Council said. “As long as we’re getting stops and preventing teams from shooting and hitting threes, it’s gonna be hard to beat us. Most of the games that we lost, teams are hitting five, six, seven threes on this and we’re not hitting threes so it’s gonna be hard for us to win.”

Graham agreed with the assessment.

“Just to piggy back off what he said, when the first few came out, I just thought the defensive intensity was just high. There’s was getting a lot of steals, a lot cuts by Jordan, Jordan had a big three,” Graham said. “So just coming out there with a lot of energy in the second half instead of being sluggish just helped.”

Ricky Council, Jalen Graham said attacking the rim was a point of emphasis heading into the game

Ricky Council and Jalen Graham were the two leading scorers for Arkansas in the game. Graham had 26 points on 12-of-15 shooting and Council added 15 on a 6-for-10 performance.

Each player took only one 3-pointer each as the team emphasized taking the ball to the hole with star defender Colin Castleton out due to an injury.

“I felt like we’ve been talking about that all week ever since we found out he was out,” Council said. “We knew they would be playing around four to five guards at a time. So we just had to attack the rim. He reemphasized it at halftime but we’ve been emphasizing the last two days.”

Arkansas finished the game with a whopping 52 points in the paint.

“We’ve just been talking about it since he’s got injured,” Graham said, “just racking the ball and just getting to the rim because they’re down one of the best shot blockers in SEC.