Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Another taste
Neighbors returns to UA more seasoned
FAYETTEVILLE — Mike Neighbors knows his Arkansas Razorbacks history.
Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long said the Greenwood native needed no primer on the Hog Call when he was announced Tuesday as the school’s ninth head women’s basketball coach at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville’s Basketball Performance Center.
Neighbors, 48, referenced Scotty Thurman’s game-winning
shot that propelled the Razorbacks men to the 1994 national championship while addressing the crowd, along with the only Arkansas women’s basketball team that made the Final Four in 1998 and Arkansas’ football victory in the 1978 Orange Bowl.
Neighbors is now hoping to make his own Razorbacks history.
His voice cracked with emotion at times while discussing his love for the university and his family, which took up several rows in the crowd.
“I want to be part of the solution at my university,” said Neighbors, when asked why he would leave a successful program at Washington, which he guided to the Final Four last season. “I wasn’t ready the last time this job came open. I’d only been a one-year head coach. I hadn’t worked hard enough.
“Just like when I was a basketball player and a baseball player and trying to play football, I hadn’t worked hard enough in my career to advance far enough to have this job any other time it had come open. I worked really
hard at Washington. We had some great things going and some great kids and as a result that hard made that job now possible.”
Neighbors replaces Jimmy
Dykes, who was hired in 2014 and had a career 43-49 record in his only head coaching position. The Razorbacks finished 13-17 this season, including a last-place 2-14 finish in the SEC. Neighbors compiled a 98-41 record in four seasons at Washington including three NCAA Tournament
appearances.
Long said it was a homecoming of sorts for Neighbors, a UA graduate who served on Gary Blair’s staff with the Razorbacks women, but the hire also brought added national recognition.
“Across this great country and across women’s basketball,
it’s seen as Arkansas hiring an incredibly competent and successful women’s basketball coach,” Long said. “When we hired Mike Neighbors, the SEC knew we had hired a game-changer.”
Neighbors said he visited Tuesday with the Arkansas team, which was seated in
the front row at the news conference, and the current coaching staff. He has asked members of his Washington staff to join him at Arkansas but said filling out a complete staff would be handled in the near future.
Aaliyah Wilson, a McDonald’s All-American from
Muskogee, Okla., who recently completed her freshman season, has asked for her release from Arkansas, but Neighbors said he plans to visit with her as soon as today. The 5-11 guard played in 26 games, averaging 4.8 points and 2.9 rebounds per game.