Despite struggles, Dykes not ready to bail

FAYETTEVILLE - As a third year coach of a 13-16 Arkansas Razorbacks women’s basket team last in the SEC at 2-14 and reeling into this week’s SEC Tournament off 10 consecutive SEC defeats, some with Jimmy Dykes’ longtime ESPN sportscasting background might already warm up their broadcasting pipes.

Not Dykes. He intends spending the next 2017–2018 season and thereafter coaching his alma mater’s women’s team and recruiting for both for its short range and longer range future.

“Oh, no,” Dykes responded Monday to a question if he thought of throwing up his hands and doing something else after this week’s presumably season-ending SEC Tournament. “Not from my standpoint at all. This is the only thing I want to still be doing. I have no desire ever to go back to TV. It’ s a great career, but I was ready for a new challenge and boy did we get one! I had watched the league and talked to a couple of coaches in the league (before formally accepting Athletic Director Jeff Long’s offer to coach the Arkansas women) and I knew what this was going to require.”

Does he still feel on the same page with the athletic director who hired him?

“Yeah, I mean I know we need to win,” Dykes said. “We are in the SEC. We are expected to win. Nobody wants to win more than me. Our staff works every single day to win every single game. But we are in Year Three. If we make the NCAA next year, and I think we have a great shot, it would be two NCAA’s in four years. If we just make postseason play next which I think we have a great shot, I think we would be building to be back in the NCAA Tournament no later than our fifth year. So that would be two NCAA Tournaments in five years. That’s a pretty good start around here.”

Dykes did think early this season he would field a team closer to or better caliber of his first 18-14 Arkansas team than what has transpired.

The 2014-2015 team, though only 6-10 in the SEC, went two rounds deep into the NCAA Tournament.

Last season’s Razorbacks women stayed home, 12-18 overall, though they actually improved to 7-9 in the SEC.

For Arkansas to make the NCAA Tournament this season would take the near impossible, winning five games in five days of the one and done SEC Tournament in Greenville, S.C. starting as the 14th seed against 11th-seeded Florida on the SEC Network Wednesday roughly 25 minutes after 12th-seeded Alabama and 13th-seeded Vanderbilt complete their game tipping off at 10 a.m. CST.

“I thought this year at one point we would be a 20 to 22-win type team,” Dykes said. “But a couple of kids chose to leave the program. We’ve had some injuries. We are playing with young guards in a non-forgiving league. This league doesn’t forgive you in any sport. Especially women’s basketball.”

At least most of the team should return next season ready to dish out lumps rather than receive them and he expressed encouragement with recruiting.

“After Jessica Jackson and Alecia Cooley, our seniors, we are a team loaded with freshmen and sophomores,” Dykes said. “They are resilient and young still hungry to be coached. It’s been encouraging how good are practices continue to be . You lose 10 in a row you can lose your team and lose your will to win and you can lose your will to prepare and your will to fight. I have been around it 30 years and watched a lot of teams when they lose like this and you can sense they are not going to win again. But not this team. They go in believing we can beat Florida on Wednesday.

So that part of it is really good.” Attitude helps but this team proves attitude alone can’t put the ball in the bucket.

“Our struggles in a nutshell: We are last in the league in points scored, last in this league in field goal percentage and last in the league in free throw percentage,” Dykes said. “We have just struggled mightily shooting the ball. You can break down a lot of things but we have not shot the ball well all season long. We just haven’t.”

That said, Dykes’ Razorbacks have played a lot of SEC close but no cigars including a 57-53 loss at Florida.

“Nine of our 14 losses in league play have been by nine points or less,” Dykes said. “Three or four were under five points. We have literally been in every game with the exception of South Carolina and Texas A&M. We didn’t play well those two nights against two good teams. What’s encouraging there has not been one sign of letup or not having a will to win.”

(Nate Allen covers the Razorbacks for the NewsTimes.)