Oral Roberts Golden Eagles at Arkansas Razorbacks

Barford scores 18 to lead surging Arkansas past ORU 104-69

Actually, the senior guard thinks the Razorbacks are among the best, period.

Barford scored 18 points on 8-of-9 shooting on Tuesday night, and Arkansas (9-2) continued to state its case for a national ranking with a dominating 104-69 win over Oral Roberts.

"I think we are (among the 25 best)," Barford said. "... I don't see (anybody) else plays like we do, this fast paced and getting in lanes and just tenacious on defense. I think we are."

"He played good basketball the other night; he just didn't make shots," Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. "Tonight, he made shots. He played defense and he made shots. That's what good players do."

As good as Barford was, he had plenty of help from the rest of the Razorbacks. Six players finished in double figures for Arkansas, with C.J. Jones adding 15 points on five 3-pointers. Anton Beard and Daryl Macon scored 14 each, with Macon scoring all of his points in the second half, and Daniel Gafford had 12 and Darious Hall 11.

Emmanuel Nzekwesi led the Golden Eagles with 22 points and was 10 of 13 from the field. R.J. Fuqua added 19 points and hit four 3-pointers, while Chris Miller finished with 10 points.

Javan White followed his career-best 20-rebound performance earlier this month against Arkansas-Little Rock with 16 more boards against the Razorbacks, but it had little effect on the outcome for an ORU team that was ill-equipped to deal with Arkansas' pressure.

"It became a situation where I think they smelled blood in the water, and they took advantage of the opportunity to create offense via the turnover," first-year ORU coach Paul Mills said. "... They could have beat us by 90 tonight."

DUNKING DANIEL

Gafford entered shooting 69.2 percent from the field, including 22 dunks on the season. The athletic 6-foot-11 freshman added to his total against the Golden Eagles, throwing down four more dunks and shooting 5 of 7 from the field while also finishing with four assists and two blocks.

BIG PICTURE

UP NEXT

Oral Roberts is at Minnesota on Thursday night.

The Razorbacks return to action after a holiday break against Cal State Bakersfield on Dec. 27.

---

More AP college basketball: http://collegebasketball.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-Top25

---

Follow Kurt Voigt on Twitter at (at)Kurt-Voigt-AP

How can I watch Oral Roberts vs. Arkansas?

• TV Channel: Oral Roberts at Arkansas 2021 College Basketball, week 7, is broadcasted on SECN+.
• Online streaming: Sign up for Fubo Free trial.
  Try Vidgo for free.