No. 7 Duke falls to unranked and short-handed Arkansas

No. 7 Duke's first loss, to an Arizona team now ranked second in the country, was understandable. This one, not so much.

The Blue Devils fell to unranked Arkansas by a score of 80-75 on Wednesday in the ACC/SEC Challenge, despite the Razorbacks' missing their top scorer in Tramon Mark. Cue the court storm.

Mark was ruled out before the game, with his back still recovering from a scary injury at the Battle 4 Atlantis that required hospitalization. The Houston transfer was a massive loss, having led the team in scoring with 18.4 points per game on 55.4% shooting (40.0% from 3-point range).

Along with the injury, Arkansas was in free fall entering Wednesday. The formerly ranked Razorbacks entered the season as SEC contenders, thanks to the transfers of Mark, Khalif Battle (Temple) and El Ellis (Louisville), but they lost three of their previous four games, despite Mark's playing all of those games.

The Razorbacks didn't show those struggles against Duke, however. They were neck-and-neck from the start in front of a sold-out Bud Walton Arena, which set an attendance record with 20,344 spectators.

After going into halftime with a one-point lead, Arkansas asserted its will in the second half, with a 19-6 run. In Mark's place, Battle led the way with 21 points on 5-of-13 shooting, five rebounds and five assists off the bench. Trevon Brazile was the other standout, recording 19 points and 11 rebounds.

It was an impressive win for Arkansas and a concerning one for Duke, which hasn't looked like the contender many expected in nonconference play. Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman plainly noted one way his team threw off the Blue Devils after the game, saying that they opted to simply not guard Duke center Mark Mitchell outside the paint.

Duke didn't have much of an answer for that when Mitchell was on the floor, especially when star big man Kyle Filipowski got into foul trouble. The other issue was Tyrese Proctor, the sophomore hyped as a potential lottery pick before the season, continuing a slow start to the season with seven points on 3-of-12 shooting.

It's pretty hard to win when your trio of top sophomores is doing that and your much-hyped freshman class is going 3-of-14 from the field, as Jared McCain, Caleb Foster, TJ Power and Sean Stewart did.

Seven games into the season, Duke has losses to Arizona and Arkansas. The biggest asset on their résumé is an ugly win against a 4-3 Michigan State team that is no longer ranked. Their lone remaining ranked nonconference opponent is No. 9 Baylor on Dec. 20.

The college basketball season is long, but in an ACC that currently has only two other ranked teams, the Blue Devils' ground is suddenly looking pretty shaky.