FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. • Trying to win consecutive conference road games for the first time since their days in the Big 12, the Missouri Tigers barely showed up for the start of Saturday’s showdown at Arkansas.

But they nearly finished.

Storming back from 18 points down at Bud Walton Arena, the Tigers took the lead late in the second half, but Jordan Geist’s contested 3-pointer just before the final buzzer rimmed out, giving the Razorbacks a 65-63 win.

For the second straight Saturday, Geist held the ball on the deciding possession, only to watch the Tigers suffer a crushing two-point loss. Last week, it was his disastrous pass intercepted by Florida’s Chris Chiozza, whose swipe and score beat the Tigers in the final seconds.

This time, after his team squandered a six-point lead with four minutes left, Geist was at the controls again, his team down two with 11 seconds on the clock. Expecting a screen from Jordan Barnett that never came, Geist dribbled into the corner, couldn’t find an open teammate — Barnett sprawled to the court after colliding with Daryl Macon, and Kassius Robertson was swarmed in the other corner — and settled for a 3 over Jaylen Barford.

“I just tried to take what the defense gave me,” Geist said.

For a split second it appeared the junior guard had redeemed himself for last week’s blunder as 18,297 held their breath in another heart-stopping Mizzou-Arkansas matchup in Fayetteville.

“I was praying that it went in,” Geist said.

Not this time. Two months ago, Tucker McCann’s field goal got the football Tigers out of Fayetteville with a last-second victory, but on Saturday, Mizzou’s Reed Nikko got a hand on the ball as it skittered off the rim but couldn’t punch in the game-tying basket.

“I wish I would have gotten a better look, a wide-open look,” Geist said. “I wish I would have gotten Kash the ball, but it didn’t happen like that.”

• BOX SCORE: Arkansas 65, Mizzou 63

• MIZZOU TALK: Sound off about the 2017-18 season

Instead, the Tigers (12-5, 2-2 Southeastern Conference) have another late meltdown to ponder until their next tipoff, Wednesday at home against Tennessee.

“We’ve been in countless close games this season,” Robertson said, “and we’ve got to learn how to consistently keep leads and take care of the ball at the end of the game.”

Why Geist in that situation rather than Robertson, who roasted the Razorbacks with 26 points? On that designed play, Mizzou coach Cuonzo Martin said the defense dictates which guard handles the ball. With Arkansas’ Anton Beard glued to Robertson, Geist became the playmaker.

“You just read the defense and you make a play,” Martin said.

It was hardly the first late-game breakdown that cost the Tigers on the offensive end — not this month and not this night. With 7:15 left, Kevin Puryear’s free throws gave MU its first lead of the second half, 54-53, followed by Robertson’s pull-up jumper to extend Mizzou’s 21-4 run.

• SCHEDULE/RESULTS: 2017-18 Mizzou basketball

• STANDINGS: SEC basketball

Puryear kept the Tigers in front with four straight free throws in the final minutes, but his illegal screen cost the Tigers a late possession, setting up Arkansas’ game-tying free throw on the other end.

Next up, it was Jeremiah Tilmon’s turn for an illegal screen, sending Beard to the floor with a minute left. On Arkansas’ next possession, Daniel Gafford’s dunk rimmed out and then in and he absorbed Tilmon’s fifth foul, good for a 65-63 lead with 57 seconds left.

With 42 seconds left, Barnett’s 3-pointer just missed, but Arkansas turned it over on the next series, setting up Mizzou’s final possession with 11 seconds left.

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The two illegal screens sabotaged Mizzou’s chances to secure its first win in Fayetteville since 2012.

“We’ve got to fix whatever we’re doing, whether it’s me waiting on the screen, whatever it is,” Geist said. “We have to make sure we get some shots up because those are points left on the board.”

After winning at South Carolina to open SEC play, the Tigers came here trying to string together a streak in road conference games for the first time since 2012. That season, Mizzou’s last before leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, Frank Haith’s Tigers logged three straight road wins over Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M. Instead, Arkansas snapped a three-game losing streak Saturday and improved to 12-5 and 2-3 in league play.

From the opening tip, Missouri didn’t look prepared for Arkansas’ full-court pressure and half-court traps, a baffling development for MU fans to witness considering Hogs coach Mike Anderson owes his career to such tactics, including his five-year run … at Missouri!

Arkansas seized control early with a 13-2 run, making six straight shots while the Tigers struggled to get the ball past halfcourt. Once the guards broke through Arkansas’ extended pressure, Mizzou’s offense turned every possession into a chore, hoisting rushed and contested 3s or, on the rare chance the Tigers got the ball inside, offered little more than contorted, awkward shots in the paint. Arkansas climbed ahead 28-10 as Mizzou went 5:04 between field goals.

Gradually, the Tigers solved the press and rediscovered their scoring touch, but the comeback supplied little satisfaction as a procession of gloomy players emptied the locker room.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Robertson said, “if you can’t finish.”