Darius Acuff Jr. scores 24 as Arkansas breezes past Hawaii 97-78 in first round of March Madness

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Darius Acuff Jr. had 24 points and seven assists, and No. 4 seed Arkansas continued its strong play after winning the Southeastern Conference Tournament, beating No. 13 seed Hawaii 97-78 on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Arkansas (27-8) moves on to face No. 12 High Point in the second round of the West Region. The Panthers knocked off No. 5 Wisconsin 83-82 in the first game in Portland.

“I’ve got three tapes that I’ve got to watch of High Point. They’re good. Wisconsin found out, and they’re not afraid,” Arkansas coach John Calipari said. “I recruited (High Point’s Cam’Ron Fletcher) to Kentucky, so I know how good he is. They’re good, we’re not walking in thinking this will be an easy one. None of them are easy.”

Meleek Thomas had 21 points and eight rebounds, Trevon Brazile added 19 points and three blocks, and Malique Ewin had 16 points and 12 rebounds.

“Malique Ewin has shown, he’s basically telling on himself, of ‘This is how good I am,’” Calipari said. “And the way he chased down balls with unbelievable energy. Then you saw (Brazile) and he wasn’t even making shots. How’d he look? He didn’t make shots and you’re looking at him like, ‘Holy cow.’”

Dre Bullock finished with 21 points and eight rebounds for Hawaii (24-9), the Big West Conference champion, and Isaac Johnson scored 15.

The Razorbacks took an 11-0 lead and never looked back, dominating the Rainbow Warriors inside.

“I mean, they’re great athletes,” Hawaii’s Isaac Johnson said. “That’s what we expected. We watched film on them. What we know at the end of the day, two points is two points. And so it wasn’t necessarily a shock factor from the level that they’re at. It just was we didn’t execute to the point that we should have allowed them to get easy buckets like that.”

Arkansas outscored Hawaii 64-40 in the paint, which was more than enough for the Razorbacks to overcome their 19% shooting from 3-point range.

After trailing 32-18, Hawaii went on a 9-4 run to cut the lead to 36-27 on a 3-pointer by Isaac Finlinson, but the Rainbow Warriors got no closer.

The Razorbacks had back-to-back alley-oop dunks to bring the crowd to its feet to close the first half. Brazile’s slam with 1:06 left in the first half made it 52-36, and Brazile blocked a shot on the next Hawaii possession, leading to a dunk by Billy Richmond III.

“What I was most happy with was we had 26 assists,” Calipari said. “We passed the ball to each other, we created shots for each other. It makes us pretty good.”

With 6:06 left, Bullock was called for a flagrant foul against Arkansas’ DJ Wagner. Wagner split the free throws and the Razorbacks converted on the ensuing possession with another alley-oop dunk by Brazile to make it 86-63.

“I just think our team has a lot of chemistry,” Brazile said. “Obviously we got great guard play. But we got (Ewin) and Nick (Pringle), Billy (Richmond) making plays sometimes. We just have great chemistry with each other.”

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