Jordan Smith’s triple-double leads Arkansas past Carleton in Bahamas

Arkansas needed just one half to leave a lasting mark on Nassau.

The Hogs beat Carleton University 98-58 Saturday night at the Baha Mar Hoops Summer League and the win wasn’t close by the time the final horn sounded.

Carleton isn’t just another team on a summer schedule.

The Ravens are Canada’s reigning national champs and they’ve won 18 national titles as a program. That history didn’t scare Arkansas though.

Jordan Smith Jr. ran the show all night long.

He finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists for a triple-double and he also grabbed four steals in just 30 minutes on the floor. It’s the kind of stat line that doesn’t happen often even in an exhibition game.

Smith shot 9 of 14 from the field and made his lone three-pointer right at the halftime buzzer.

That shot pushed Arkansas’s lead to 51-27 heading into the break and pretty much decided the game’s outcome.

He wasn’t the only Hog who caught fire though. Jeremiah Wilkinson dropped a game-high 26 points and did it while playing through a rough night before.

Wilkinson had taken a hard fall on his shoulder and head during Friday’s win over the Bahamas National Team and coaches weren’t sure he’d suit up again so soon.

He did suit up and he made it count. Wilkinson knocked down 5 of 9 shots from deep and finished 7 of 9 at the free-throw line adding four rebounds and two assists across 25 minutes.

“I feel great. We just won a game in the Bahamas and I love playing with this team so I have no complaints,” Wilkinson said. “Today just got to be out there with them got to fight with them and it was exciting. I can’t ask for anything else but to go to war with these guys.”

How the Hogs pulled away

Carleton actually scored first and the game stayed tight for about 12 minutes.

But once Arkansas found its rhythm the game changed fast. Down 5-2 early the Razorbacks ripped off a 9-0 run to grab an 11-5 lead they never gave back.

With 7:48 left in the first half Arkansas was only up 24-21.

Then things got out of hand for Carleton. A 10-0 run made it 34-21 and an 8-0 stretch inside a bigger 21-5 spurt pushed the lead to 45-26.

Arkansas closed the half on a 14-1 run capped by Smith’s buzzer-beating jumper.

By halftime Arkansas was shooting 58.3% from the field and 58.3% from three-point range. On the other end the defense held Carleton to just 29.4% shooting from the floor and from deep.

Chin Coleman served as acting head coach for the game and he liked how his group responded to early pressure.

“They came out with the physical mindset to start the game and I loved it,” Coleman said. “To see what we’re made of. So those guys kind of made it hard for us for about the first ten minutes of the game. Dagger, dagger, dagger.

“Jeremiah just kind of gave us a separation. We got some stops. We got our first kill at about, I think it was like 14 minutes in the first half that we got our first kill.

“But give credit to Canada, played a tough game. They were really into it to start. They had a game plan and then we kind of wore them down with our numbers.”

JJ Andrews added 17 points and six rebounds while Abdou Toure scored 15 and Caleb Ourigou chipped in 10 for the Hogs.

Young Hogs leaning on veteran leadership

Smith’s triple-double won’t count in Arkansas’s official record book since it came in an exhibition but it’s still rare company.

He’s the first Razorback to pull off the feat since Courtney Fortson had 20 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds against North Carolina Central back in December 2010.

John Calipari made clear he trusts Smith even on nights when shots aren’t falling.

“He could go 0 for 5 and I’m leaving him in the game because he impacts the game so many other ways,” Calipari said on the FloSports broadcast. “If he’s making a bunch of shots we’re in very good shape.

“But we can win without him making shots. And he is a way better shooter than people will give him credit for.”

Coleman also broke down what makes the Smith-Wilkinson backcourt click despite neither player standing much taller than 6-foot-2.

“One of the things that kind of gives them the opportunity to be really good together is that Jordan is about 6-foot-2, maybe touching 6-foot-3,” Coleman said. “Jeremiah, he’ll be mad at me if I say he’s not 6-foot or 6-foot-1.

“But they’re both plus-ten athletes for their size. So whatever size you guys wanna give Jeremiah, he has a 45-inch vertical. So they’re really athletic really fast really strong.”

Wilkinson is only in his third college season but he’s already one of the older players on a roster with an average age of 18 years and seven months.

That makes his voice matter even more in the locker room.

“I can really shoot the ball so that’s gonna be part of my role here too,” Wilkinson said. “That translates everywhere you go. But my job here is to just keep expanding my game and just be a leader to these guys and that’s how I keep going.

“I was an underclassman last year. I was a sophomore at Georgia. Now I’m an upperclassman and we have a lot of younger guys. So it’s on me to lead.”

On the Carleton side Augustus Brazdeikis led all scorers among the Ravens with 18 points and nine rebounds and two of his teammates also reached double figures. JJ Andrews credited the defense for setting the tone.

“Defense is what wins games,” Andrews said. “Everybody says that defense wins championships but, I mean, it’s true. We want to play fast.”

The win pushed Arkansas to 18-2 on summer foreign tours under Calipari.

The Razorbacks get Sunday off before facing Toros del Valle, the reigning champ of Colombia’s top pro league, on Monday.

Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. and the game will stream on FloSports.

Key takeaways

• Jordan Smith Jr. recorded Arkansas’s first triple-double since 2010 with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.
• Jeremiah Wilkinson scored a game-high 26 points a day after an injury scare, hitting five 3-pointers.
• Arkansas broke the game open with a 27-3 run to close the first half and now improves to 18-2 on summer foreign tours ahead of Monday’s game against Toros del Valle.