Billy Richmond III Scores 21 as No. 19 Arkansas Holds Off Central Arkansas 79-66

For about 15 minutes on Friday night, this looked like the kind of in-state tune-up Arkansas has turned into a habit. Then Central Arkansas spent the second half reminding everyone in Bud Walton Arena that a 16-point halftime lead is not a final score. No. 19 Arkansas never trailed after the opening four minutes, but it needed a late 9-0 run to put away Central Arkansas 79-66 in Fayetteville.

Billy Richmond III led the way again, scoring 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting with nine rebounds, four assists and zero turnovers in 36 minutes. Jeremiah Wilkinson added 14 points with four 3-pointers, Jordan Smith Jr. scored 12 on 5-of-6 shooting, and Miikka Muurinen had 11 points, three steals and two blocks. Davion Thompson ran the offense with eight assists off the bench.

Arkansas improved to 3-1 and stayed perfect against its in-state neighbor in a series that now stands at 11-0. Central Arkansas dropped to 2-2, but John Shulman's team won the second half 39-36 and cut an 18-point gap to six with a little more than five minutes left. The Bears shot 43.1 percent and made eight 3-pointers, and Harry Beauchamp led them with 14 points.

A Slow Start, Then a 20-2 Avalanche

Smith hit two free throws for the first points of the night, Cole McCormick answered with a dunk, and Beauchamp buried a 3 to give the Bears a 5-2 lead. Wilkinson's layup kept Arkansas close, and Ty Robinson's jumper put Central Arkansas back in front 7-6 with 16:05 left in the first half.

That was the last time the Bears led. Arkansas scored the next 11 points, with Richmond scoring two layups and a 3 and Thompson and JJ Andrews adding layups in between. After Luke Moore stopped the bleeding with a layup, the Razorbacks went right back to work in transition. Muurinen threw down a dunk off a Richmond feed, Smith converted a steal into a dunk, Muurinen finished an alley-oop from Smith, and Richmond hit another 3. By the 9:42 mark, Arkansas had turned a 7-6 deficit into a 26-9 lead on a 20-2 run.

The Razorbacks kept the margin in that range the rest of the half. Thompson knocked down a 3, Smith and Richmond scored in the paint, and Cooper Bowser's free throw made it 37-19, the biggest lead of the half. Central Arkansas closed the gap a bit behind 3s from Beauchamp, R.J. Young and Simm-Marten Saadi, but Wilkinson hit two late 3s, the second with two seconds left on a Thompson assist, to send Arkansas to the locker room up 43-27.

The Bears Make It Uncomfortable

Arkansas opened the second half with the same energy. A Bowser dunk off a Thompson pass made it 48-31, and Wilkinson's 3 at the 15:45 mark pushed the lead to 53-35.

Central Arkansas had other ideas. Beauchamp hit a 3, Young scored on a layup, and after a Richmond dunk, Beauchamp drilled another 3 and Moore added a jumper. Camarion Bead then came off the bench and hit a 3 at the 12:13 mark, and the Bears had turned an 18-point deficit into a 55-48 game with a 13-2 burst.

Abdou Toure answered immediately with a 3, and Arkansas found a second wind. Muurinen got to the line twice and made all four free throws, Smith scored on a layup and Thompson finished another, and the lead was back to 66-51 with 8:03 to play. Rylie Marshall made a free throw, Moore scored on a layup, McCormick hit a 3, Moore added a free throw and McCormick finished a layup at 5:14. That 9-0 run made it 66-60, and the Bud Walton crowd suddenly had something to worry about.

Wilkinson's Dagger and the Closing Kick

Smith steadied things with a jumper, but Beauchamp answered to make it 68-62 at 4:17. On the next trip, Richmond found Wilkinson for a 3 at 4:07, and that shot changed the night. Arkansas did not allow another point for nearly three minutes.

Bowser made two free throws at 3:18, then went to the other end and blocked a Beauchamp 3-point attempt. Smith followed with a block on a Robinson layup, and Richmond capped the sequence with a dunk off a Thompson assist. Bowser's layup at 1:36, set up by Wilkinson, made it 77-62 and finished a 9-0 run. Saadi scored twice in the final 80 seconds and Richmond made two free throws with 20 seconds left.

The final numbers show the gap in efficiency. Arkansas shot 51.8 percent from the field, made 9 of 23 3-pointers and hit 12 of 16 free throws. The Razorbacks also won the rebounding battle 32-26 in CBS Sports' player totals, assisted on 19 of 29 made baskets and blocked six shots to Central Arkansas' one. Both teams had eight steals, and Arkansas committed 11 turnovers to the Bears' 13.

Richmond Keeps Stacking Good Nights

Richmond has quietly become the most reliable piece of this Arkansas team. Two nights after leading the Razorbacks with 16 points against Robert Morris, Richmond made 8 of 12 shots, all three 3-point attempts and both free throws. The nine rebounds led the team, and the four assists came without a single turnover. Richmond also had 10 of Arkansas' 20 points during the first-half run.

Wilkinson was streaky, going 5-of-14 from the floor and 4-of-10 from deep, but the shots that went in mattered. Arkansas' notes entering the night said Wilkinson was the only Hog to score in double figures in all three games, and that streak is now four for four. Smith was efficient and active, adding three rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks, though Smith also had three of the team's 11 turnovers.

Muurinen made 3 of 8 shots and 5 of 6 free throws in 20 minutes, and the two first-half dunks were a big part of the early surge. Bowser made all three field goal attempts for nine points and blocked two shots, though the big man finished with only four rebounds. That snapped a streak of at least seven rebounds in each of the first three games, according to the school's notes.

Thompson's line will not jump off the page at seven points on 3-of-8 shooting, but the eight assists against one turnover kept the offense organized. The Arkansas bench as a whole scored only 12 points, with Toure adding three and Andrews two.

Central Arkansas Shows Some Teeth

Beauchamp was the Bears' best player, scoring 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting with four 3s, three rebounds and three assists in 31 minutes. Moore added 12 points, three assists and three steals in 36 minutes, and McCormick was efficient with nine points on 3-of-4 shooting and five rebounds, though McCormick also had four turnovers.

Saadi scored nine, including the two late baskets, and Young gave the Bears seven points off the bench on 3-of-5 shooting. Robinson had a rough night as a shooter at 2-of-10 but handed out five assists and grabbed five rebounds. Central Arkansas got 18 points from its bench, six more than Arkansas did.

The problem was the start. The Bears shot well enough after halftime to win the half, but the 20-2 run in the first half left too much ground to make up against a ranked SEC team on its home floor. Free throws hurt too. Central Arkansas went 8-of-14 at the line, and Marshall missed three of four.

What It Means

For Arkansas, this one counts as a win with a warning label. John Calipari's team now owns home wins over UAPB, Robert Morris and Central Arkansas, with the 91-72 loss to Virginia in Washington still the outlier. Arkansas has shown it can bury opponents in bursts, but it has also let two straight home opponents hang around longer than the talent gap suggests.

There were positives. The shot selection was mostly good, the ball moved, and the defense produced six blocks and eight steals. Arkansas entered the night 35-0 under Calipari when shooting at least 50 percent, according to the school's notes, and it cleared that bar again at 51.8 percent.

The schedule turns serious now. Arkansas faces Indiana in the Bad Boy Series in New York on Tuesday, Nov. 17, and a 9-0 closing run will not be enough against a Big Ten team if the middle of the second half looks like it did on Friday. The Razorbacks need their first-half defense to last all 40 minutes, and fast.

Read about Arkansas' 76-53 win over Robert Morris, the loss to Virginia in the Capital Showcase and the season-opening rout of UAPB. For full stats, see the CBS Sports box score (opens in a new tab).

Sources: CBS Sports box score and play-by-play, Arkansas Athletics game preview. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Arkansas Athletics (file photo).