Much like last season, Arkansas went until mid-February without winning a game outside of Arkansas. Then the Hogs traveled to Auburn, and both years the Tigers allowed the Razorbacks to claim their first road victory of the season.
It's the first time Marshawn Powell and BJ Young put together great games on the road, and that's a really big part of what allowed the Hogs to get the win. The two of them combined for 45 points, with Young leading the way with 25. Powell scored 20 and grabbed nine rebounds to go along with it while sitting out much of the first half due to foul trouble.
The Hogs also got help from the other two juniors, Mardracus Wade and Rickey Scott, both of whom scored 11 points. Scott connected on three 3s, and Wade worked his way in position to get a couple of easy layups late in the game.
Those four players represented 67 of Arkansas' 83 points. Other players helped out as they could. Rashad Madden played one of his best games at point guard late in the game. He delivered five assists without committing a turnover.
But the big story is simply that Arkansas won it's first road game of the year. The second of the Mike Anderson era and both have come at Auburn. Last year, Arkansas had basically hit the wall by this point so the team wasn't able to use the victory to accomplish anything, but we'll see what Arkansas can put together this year as this team seems to be playing its best basketball of the year over the past couple of weeks (Vanderbilt game notwithstanding).
The win is a great way to build momentum going into Saturday, when Arkansas hosts Missouri. The game is sold out and hopefully will be a great environment. Missouri also won it's first road game of the year Wednesday night, so it'll be fun to see what happens on Saturday.
But congratulations to the Razorbacks and Mike Anderson for finally getting this monkey off their back. It's a relief for everybody, and relief is good.