Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 91, LSU 62

Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 91, LSU 62

Adam Ford

11 Feb, 2026

The Razorbacks earned their first sweep of the season, crushing LSU 91-62 in Baton Rouge. The win is Arkansas’ fifth in its last six games and its third straight road win.

That’s back-to-back 20-point road wins for the Hogs – the first time they’ve done that since 1991 – and to make it more impressive, they did it without DJ Wagner and Karter Knox, who remain out recovering from apparently-minor injuries. Darius Acuff had 28 points while Trevon Brazile had 14 points, 12 rebounds, five blocks, and four steals. Arkansas blocked 10 shots as a team and were plus-30 in the paint against an LSU team that is usually tough in the paint at both ends.

The Hogs now have an extra day of rest until a home game on Saturday, and they’ll need it. John Calipari is hopeful that Wagner and Knox will return soon, but Malique Ewin exited the game in the second half after taking an elbow to the face. Blood was pouring down his face and he had to have four stitches. Assuming he didn’t get a concussion or anything, he should be able to play Saturday, though he may wear a mask.

The win moves Arkansas into a tie with Kentucky for second place in the SEC with an 8-3 SEC record. Both are a half-game back of Florida (8-2), who plays Georgia on Wednesday, but the Gators and Wildcats are playing in Gainesville this weekend for the outright lead, so the Hogs will remain in second no matter what happens.

Advanced stats

Fun new feature alert! We now have gradient color coding for every stat. The color is based on a comparison to every single Division I game played this year. White (no color) means that stat was basically around the median, red means it was worse, and green means it was better, and the intensity of the red and green are now good or bad it was.

Some close games will have lots of white and only light red and green on key stats that swung the game. Not this game, though:

The offense did well as expected, but that’s two straight solid defensive performances. Mississippi State has a bad offense, and LSU was missing its top point guard, so we can’t get too excited, but the improved effort has been nice to see. LSU scored a flurry of points in the final couple minutes but was on track to be held in the 50s until then.

Check out points in the paint. LSU won the first matchup 42-36 and, as we discussed in the preview, has been a pretty good paint team all year, but the Hogs absolutely punished the Tigers in the paint this time. The Kentucky game may have been a wakeup call for this team’s lack of physicality, because they have physically overwhelmed their last two opponents. Now we need to see that against a better team, starting Saturday.

LSU produced a higher volume of shots thanks a 44% offensive rebound rate. It didn’t help much, however, because they couldn’t make shots at any level.

Arkansas took 71% of its field goals in the paint and shot 73%. Both numbers are very high, and taken together, that means that 52% of Arkansas’ field goal attempts were made shots in the paint. That’ll do.

The Tigers also made a living in the paint, but the Hogs contested those shots well and their perimeter defense was very good. Their star shooter Max Mackinnon was 1 of 7 from 3 in the first matchup but still managed 14 points. This time? Just two points, and only one 3-point attempt.

As for personnel, you’ve got to love working to upgrade a graphic only to have an existing one break. Some sort of calculation error in LSU’s defensive BPM produced a little error. It hardly matters, since all those numbers were going to be terrible anyways for the Tigers.

Brazile wins MVP honors for this one. His nine stocks (steals plus blocks) is incredible, hence his plus-9.6 defensive plus minus.

Arkansas did not end up using the forward trio in this game that we briefly saw against Mississippi State. The best lineup was the most-used: Acuff, Thomas, Richmond, Brazile, Ewin. That lineup played 25 possessions together and outscored LSU 34-13. That’s Arkansas’ most-used lineup in power conference games this year. It’s +37 in 140 possessions. Replace Richmond with Knox and that five-man lineup is +27 in 81 possessions, and we obviously haven’t seen it over the last two games.

Despite our lengthy defense of Karter Knox, these last two games have made a case that Richmond should continue to start even after Knox is healthy. Part of why that works is that, as we argued, Wagner plays much better when he’s in the game with Knox. Since Wagner is coming off the bench, it makes sense to have Wagner and Knox enter the game together. You still have the issue that Wagner-Acuff together is a very bad combo, but maybe giving Acuff an early breather in the first half of games can help save his legs.

A possible first-half pattern could look like this:

  • Starting Five: Acuff, Thomas, Richmond, Brazile, Pringle
  • Around 16:00, Ewin subs in for Pringle
  • Around 12:00, Wagner subs in for Acuff and Knox for Richmond
  • Around 10:00, Acuff subs in for Thomas
  • Around 8:00, Thomas subs in for Wagner (and Pringle gives Ewin a breather)
  • Around 6:00, Richmond subs in for Brazile (and Ewin comes back in for Pringle)
  • Around 3:00, Brazile subs in for Knox

Total minutes there out of 20 would be: Acuff 18, Thomas 18, Wagner 4, Richmond 14, Knox 9, Brazile 17, Ewin 14, Pringle 6. Your best two lineups play four minutes and three minutes. Second-half flow would depend on how everyone is playing, but Knox probably gets more early-second-half minutes.

Highlights

Up next

The Hogs need to watch out on Saturday. They are catching a desperate Auburn team for the second time this season. Last month, the Tigers started 0-2 in the SEC and desperately needed a win, so they played like they wanted it more and crushed the Hogs, particularly dominating effort points. Now, a three-game losing streak has put the Tigers right back on the bubble. They are going to be desperate and they are going to play like it.

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