I have plenty of notes in Tuesday’s newspaper, but I wanted to throw one of them on the blog. After all, the hot topic on Internet message boards is the questionable officiating in Arkansas’ 23-20 loss at second-ranked Florida on Saturday.

It’s not often that the Southeastern Conference comes out and says, “My bad.” Well, it did today.

Here’s the story:

The Southeastern Conference admitted Monday that Arkansas defensive tackle Malcolm Sheppard didn’t warrant the personal foul penalty called late in last week’s 23-20 loss at second-ranked Florida.

Toward the end of the play, Sheppard was flagged for hitting Florida offensive tackle Marcus Gilbert away from the action. But a TV replay shows that Sheppard hit Gilbert only after the offensive lineman tried running into him first.

The penalty gave the Gators a first-and-goal from the 10-yard line, and Florida’s Jeff Demps ran for a touchdown on the ensuing play to tie the score at 20-20 with 7 minutes, 27 seconds remaining.

On the play before Sheppard’s penalty, Arkansas cornerback Ramon Broadway was called for a questionable pass interference penalty.

“After video review, there was no evidence on the video to support the personal foul penalty called on Arkansas midway through the fourth quarter,” the SEC said in the statement released Monday afternoon. “The other calls that were referenced are judgment calls and a review of those calls have been communicated to Arkansas.”

Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said he spoke with Rogers Redding, the SEC’s Coordinator of Football Officials, about the controversial penalties.

Petrino said he was also disturbed that Florida wide receiver Riley Cooper wasn’t called for offensive pass interference on Arkansas cornerback Andru Stewart on the Gators’ game-winning drive in the final minutes.

“There’s not a lot of recourse. We do submit plays to the SEC just like we do every week,” Petrino said. “Obviously, I called and talked to the director of the officials, but there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.”

Check out an audio preview of this weekend’s series between Mississippi State and Arkansas by listening below with Morning News sports writers Nathan Allen and Vernon Tarver.

Mississippi State at No. 14 Arkansas

When: 6:35 p.m. Friday; 2:05 p.m. Saturday; 1:05 p.m. Sunday

Where: Baum Stadium, Fayetteville.

On The Air: KFAY-AM 1030; KURM-AM 790, FM-100.3; KHGG-AM 1580, FM-103.1; KXIO-FM 106.9

Records: Mississippi State 14-10, 2-4; Arkansas 17-4, 6-0

Series Record: Mississippi State leads 41-27

Friday’s Probable Pitchers: Mississippi State, LHP Tyler Whitney (2-1, 2.82 ERA); Arkansas, LHP Dallas Keuchel (3-0, 3.00ERA)

LSU 72, Arkansas 69 (FINAL)

Obviously, the one thing that has hurt the Razorbacks the most this season (finishing games) hurt them again tonight. Arkansas showed spurts of playing well throughout the game, but other times, had a few lapses where nothing went right. Either way, the result is Arkansas’ 6th straight loss, which leaves it 1-10 in SEC play.

Here are some final individual stats for both teams …

LSU: Thornton (28 points, 6 rebounds, 7 steals); Mitchell (20 points, 13 rebounds); Johnson (12 points, 12 rebounds, 6 blocks).

Arkansas: Washington (10 points, 8 rebounds); Sanchez (5 points, 4 rebounds); Fortson (17 points, 7 rebounds, 5 turnovers); Clarke (17 points, 2 steals, 4 3-pointers); Henry (10 points, 4 rebounds).

Here are some final team stats for both teams …

LSU: 15 turnovers, 15 assists, 9 blocks, 28-64 FG; 4-16 3-pointers; 12-24 FT; 41 rebounds.

Arkansas: 16 turnovers; 7 assists; 3 blocks; 25-60 FG; 6-18 3-pointers; 13-19 FT; 34 rebounds.

Attendance: 16,079

Be sure to check out all of our coverage of the game in Thursday’s edition of The Morning News or online at www.nwaonline.net

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Arkansas 68, LSU 64 (3:37)

At this point, Arkansas is doing everything it can to hold on to its lead. LSU has made a couple of big 3-pointers within the last 3 minutes, which has helped it stay in the game.

One of those 3-pointers came from Marcus Thornton, who is continuing to have a huge game. Just after Arkansas had a big offensive possession a few moments ago, which got the Arkansas fans on their feet and yelling at the top of their lungs, Thornton drained a trey from the right side to silence the crowd.

We’ll see if Arkansas can hold on to its lead in the last 3 minutes of the game …

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Arkansas 61, LSU 52 (7:36)

We’re getting down to the end of the game and Arkansas has still managed to hold on to a lead, which is pretty significant considering this is a team that has not been able to finish games very well this season.

Right now, nobody is in serious foul trouble for either team. Washington leads the Razorbacks with 3 fouls; he also has 9 points and 4 rebounds.

LSU’s Marcus Thornton has continued to have a huge game. He’s scored 19 points while Tasmin Mitchell has 16 points. Leading in rebounds for the Tigers are Mitchell (10) and Chris Johnson (11).

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Arkansas 49, LSU 45 (11:46)

Well, it seems that Arkansas has found a little momentum all of the sudden. The Hogs went from being down by a point to now leading by four. Again, Rotnei Clarke is having a big game, not only offensively, but he’s playing pretty good defense. A few moments ago, he got a steal and took it the other way to score a fastbreak layup, giving Arkansas its current lead.

Clarke leads all scorers with 14 points while Jason Henry and Courtney Fortson both have 8.

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LSU 37, Arkansas 36 (15:57)

Well, things have turned for the worse in the second half. Arkansas, which led by as much as 18 points in the first half, now trails by 1. LSU has basically found its game, dominating the inside of the lane and being more consistent from the floor.

Arkansas coach John Pelphrey also picked up his first technical foul since Arkansas played North Texas on Jan. 3. It was also his fifth technical foul of the season. He argued to one of the referees that Michael Sanchez got fouled when he was going up for a layup on the left side of the goal — obviously, the refs disagreed.

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Arkansas 32, LSU 26 (Halftime)

Well, we all knew LSU would make some kind of rally, and that’s exactly what its done just before halftime. The Tigers ended the first half on a 16-4 run to cut Arkansas’ lead to only six points.

Ok, here are a few leading scorers for both teams:

LSU: Mitchell (10 points, 6 rebs); Johnson (6 points, 7 rebs); Thornton (8 points, 2 rebs, 4 turnovers).

Arkansas: Washington (2 points, 3 rebs); Fortson (6 rebs, 2 assists, 5 turnovers); Welsh (3 points, 2 rebs); Clarke (12 points, 1 reb).

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Arkansas 28, LSU 15 (3:51)

The Razorbacks still have a big lead, but LSU is slowly creeping back into the ballgame. LSU senior guard Marcus Thornton hit a fastbreak 3-pointer in the face of Rotnei Clarke to pull the Tigers within 13 points.

Still, Arkansas has managed to play well enough to maintain a double-digit lead. Its getting great production from players underneath the basket, as the Hogs are outrebounding LSU 22-17.

Arkansas is also 4 of 8 from the 3-point line, which is another big reason why it has such a big lead. We’ll see, however, if it can keep that up.

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Arkansas 26, LSU 9 (7:30)

Rotnei Clarke is going off and Arkansas fans are going crazy.

The Razorbacks just had a couple of huge possessions where Rotnei Clarke hit a 3-pointer from the left corner and then got a quick turnover, where he scored a layup and got fouled. Overall, Clarke scored 6 points in 14 seconds, giving the Razorbacks a huge lead.

A few moments after that, Clarke hit another 3-pointer from the top of the key, giving the Razorbacks their current lead of 17 points. Right now, Clarke has 12 points as he’s 3-of-3 from the perimeter.

Stefan Welsh just had a bit of scary moment when he suffered some kind of injury or cramp on his right foot. With 9:38 left in the half, Welsh ran to Arkansas’ bench after a made shot and fell on the ground, grabbing his right foot. After a few moments with team trainers, Welsh began walking around the sideline area before later returning to the game.

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Arkansas 13, LSU 7 (11:33)

The Razorbacks are still playing well, taking advantage of every offensive possession. In fact, Jason Henry is having a pretty good game with 6 points, 3 rebounds. Two of Henry’s rebounds were from put-backs. LSU isn’t shooting the ball well at all right now (3 of 12, 25 percent) and the Tigers have committed four turnovers.

Also, either Pelphrey is feeling a little better on the bench or he can’t help from being himself during games. He was pretty fiery a few moments ago when Michael Washington got called on a foul that Pelphrey argued was all ball on Washington’s part.

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Arkansas 7, LSU 1

The Razorbacks have definitely started the game in a big way. The Hogs went on a 7-0 run thanks to two layups from Michael Washington and Stefan Welsh and also a 3-pointer from Rotnei Clarke from the top of the perimeter.

So far, the game has been really sloppy, with a combined four turnovers for both teams, including three from Arkansas. Also, the crowd has filled in a little more and we’re saying there is probably a crowd closer to 14,000 in attendance.

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Tonight’s Starting Lineups

LSU (21-4, 9-1)

Tasmin Mitchell (6-7, 235, 16.8 ppg)

Marcus Thornton (6-4, 205, 20.0 ppg)

Terry Martin (6-6, 210, 5.1 ppg)

Garrett Temple (6-6, 190, 6.7 ppg)

Chris Johnson (6-11, 210, 8.2 ppg)

Arkansas (13-10, 1-9)

Michael Washington (6-9, 239, 16.4 ppg)

Courtney Fortson (5-11, 180, 14.6 ppg)

Stefan Welsh (6-3, 185, 12.7 ppg)

Rotnei Clarke (6-0, 184, 11.0 ppg)

Michael Sanchez (6-8, 236, 6.2 ppg)

By the way, there’s not much of a crowd here tonight. I guess Arkansas’ 5-game losing streak is affecting the attendance. I’m not good at guessing crowd sizes, but I’d say about 10,000 are in the building.

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Pregame

Okay, I know it says this is Ryan Malashock up above, but tonight it’s not true. This is Nathan Allen, and I’ll be doing all the game blogging from Arkansas’ game against Louisiana State in Bud Walton Arena.

Let’s go ahead and get a few quick-hitters out of the way first …

1. First, the media was informed earlier that Arkansas coach John Pelphrey has bronchitis. Because of this, he obviously won’t be himself tonight, like yelling from the bench at his own players or game officials. It’s going to be a little weird seeing Pelphrey so subdued considering how firery he can get during games.

Arkansas assistants Tom Ostrom, Isaac Brown and Rob Evans all have additional duties tonight to assist Pelphrey. Ostrom will be doing the postgame news conference, Brown will be doing the postgame radio interview with Mike Nail and Rob Evans will be doing Thursday’s news conference to discuss Arkansas’ upcoming game against South Carolina on Saturday.

As to who will be the head coach tonight, we have no idea … Be sure to stay tuned, this should be interesting!

2. Arkansas freshman point guard Courtney Fortson is on the floor warming up. Of course last Saturday against Kentucky, Fortson was suspended by Pelphrey for undisclosed reasons, but returned to the team earlier this week during practices. We’re pretty certain Fortson is going to play, if whether or not he starts is still up in the air.

As of right now, there is still 17:40 left on the clock before tipoff, and fans are still piling in Bud Walton Arena. Should be a competitive game tonight, stay tuned for more blogs.