FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas stopped its two-game skid with a win over over a solid TCU team Saturday afternoon.

It was a close game until the Razorbacks followed a technical foul on Jamie Dixon midway through the second half with a 12-2 spurt to finally pull away for a 78-67 win over the Horned Frogs in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

Led by 20 points apiece by Mason Jones and Jimmy Whitt Jr., Arkansas improved to 15-4 overall and picked up a quality win, as TCU had just beaten No. 18 Texas Tech. The Horned Frogs are now 13-6 this season.

It’s the Razorbacks’ third win over a major conference opponent outside of the SEC, as they also beat Georgia Tech from the ACC and Indiana from the Big Ten on the road.

“When you look at non-conference and you say we beat three of those teams - Power Five - two of them on the road, one of them home, we had not a good non-conference, we had a great non-conference,” head coach Eric Musselman said. “We took care of business in the non-conference. Now we’ll see what we do in our own conference, but as far as the non-conference play - because now that book and that chapter is closed - I thought we were awesome.”

Arkansas gets back into SEC play - where it’s tied for seventh at 3-3 - when it welcomes South Carolina to Fayetteville on Wednesday. Tip off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. and the game will be televised on the SEC Network.

New Lineup

Head coach Eric Musselman hinted during Friday’s press conference that he might switch up what has been a mostly consistent starting lineup.

The first domino to fall was Isaiah Joe, the Razorbacks’ second-leading scorer (16.8 ppg), being held out to rest his knee. The sophomore first had knee inflammation following his 34-point performance at Ole Miss, but reaggravated it Wednesday against Mississippi State. It’s the first game Joe has missed in his career, as he had started 52 straight games.

That opened one spot, but Musselman opted to make a couple of changes, with Jalen Harris and Reggie Chaney each making their first starts of the season. In addition to Joe being out, Desi Sills came off the bench.

The only other time Arkansas varied from its usual starting lineup was against Northern Kentucky on Nov. 30, when Mason Jones was out with a shoulder injury and Jeantal Cylla started in his place.

Early Timeout

By this point of the season, everyone knows Musselman doesn’t like calling timeouts. He’s even joked with he media that he’s trying to see how many he can save up by the end of the year.

The first-year coach’s reasoning is that he wants his players to have the confidence to play through things, while also not allowing the opposing team to set up their defense.

On Saturday, though, he did not like how his team started out against TCU - and understandably so. Chaney, making his third career start, committed a turnover and missed badly on a layup attempt on Arkansas’ first two offensive possessions and the Horned Frogs got a couple of easy buckets by feeding 6-foot-11 center Kevin Samuel.

The result was Musselman calling a timeout just 71 seconds into the game, by far the quickest he’s called a timeout since arriving in Fayetteville. He subbed in Sills for Chaney during the break and the Razorbacks responded by making back-to-back three-pointers.

The Size Problem

Much like Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis last month, Samuel gave Arkansas all kinds of problems in the first half. He dwarfed everyone on the court for the Razorbacks and dominated down low, scoring the Horned Frogs’ first eight points and 16 of their 29 first-half points.

The big man lived around the basket and was perfect 7 of 7 from the floor while grabbing eight rebounds.

Arkansas did a much better job keeping the ball out of his hands in the second half, limiting him to just eight points on 2 of 5 shooting. Most of his scoring came at the free throw line.

He did, however, finish with 18 rebounds. Considering his presence down low, though, the Razorbacks didn’t get crushed on the boards. Their minus-8 margin (34-26) was better than what they did against Mississippi State (minus-10) and Kentucky (minus-18) the last two games.

Surprise Performance by Sills

He may have come off the bench, but Sills played starter minutes Saturday afternoon. In fact, when he came in for Chaney after that quick timeout, he never came off the court the rest of the half.

The Razorbacks honestly couldn’t afford to take him out, as he carried them offensively for the final 18 minutes and 49 seconds of the half. The sophomore from Jonesboro exceeded his season average of 9.2 points by scoring 11 before halftime.

Sills did it with his usual aggressiveness, attacking the basket and finishing layups despite his 6-foot-1, 196-pound frame, but what made the difference against TCU was that he knocked down his three-pointers.

Coming into the game making just 21.3 percent of his attempts, he knocked down both of his first-half attempts and then made one from the corner in the second half to give Arkansas its first double-digit lead of the afternoon. That bucket also forced the Horned Frogs to burn a timeout with 8:51 and woke up the sellout crowd.

It was an efficient night for Sills, who finished with 18 points on 7 of 8 shooting - including a perfect 3 of 3 from beyond the arc.

Chaney’s Redemption

It’s hard to imagine a worse start to the game than what Chaney experienced against TCU.

After being benched less than two minutes into his first start of the season, the sophomore eventually checked back in and had a disastrous sequence with about eight minutes left in the half.

Chaney went up for a dunk, but got rejected by Samuel. Seven seconds later, the ball ended up back in his hands for a wide open dunk - and he missed the two-hand slam.

That led to Ethan Henderson getting a few minutes, but Chaney got his chance at redemption after halftime. With the Razorbacks clinging to a three-point lead, he went on a personal 6-0 run in just one minute and 12 seconds.

His three buckets came via a dunk, fast break layup and then a reverse layup late in the shot clock, pushing Arkansas’ lead to nine.

Second-Half Mason (Again)

With Joe nursing a knee injury, many thought Jones would have to snap out of his recent funk and carry the Razorbacks if they were going to have a chance to beat TCU.

However, that proved not to be the case. Foul trouble limited him to just nine minutes in the first half and he missed all three of his shots from the floor, plus made only one of two free throws.

Despite Jones’ one point, Arkansas still led 33-29 at halftime thanks to the aforementioned 11 points by Sills and 12 points by Whitt. Luckily for the Razorbacks, he snapped out of it, knocking down a three-pointer on their first possession out of the locker room on his way to a 19-point second half.

Most of that production came at the free throw line, where he scored half of his 20 points. It was still unusual to see him make just 10 of 15 from the charity stripe, as he was shooting over 90 percent as recently as two weeks ago, but it was encouraging to see him attacking the basket and getting to the line.

It’s the second straight game Jones has been ineffective in limited minutes in the first half, only to turn it on after halftime. Against Mississippi State on Wednesday, he scored two points in 10 minutes and then played the entire second half while racking up 18 points.

Containing Bane

The biggest concern on the scouting report of TCU was easily senior Desmond Bane. He came into the game as the second-leading scorer in the Big 12 at 17.2 points per game and the top sharpshooter in the league, making 44.1 percent of his three-pointers.

Outside of the first two minutes of the second half, when he made back-to-back 3s, the Razorbacks did a really good job shutting Bane down.

They implemented a new defense in which Whitt - who Musselman called one of the best defenders he’s ever coached - face guarded him all game. The result was an eight-point game, as they held him to a season-low six shots.

None of those points came in the first half, when Bane managed to get off only two shots in 19 minutes.