Sellout should pause reduction plans

FAYETTEVILLE — Any proposal renovating Walton Arena by reducing capacity should reel backwards after last Saturday’s full-house rebuttal.

With the Arkansas Razorbacks excluding Saturday’s charity exhibition game against Big Ten champion Purdue from their men’s basketball season ticket package, they still attracted an official sellout 19,200 for an Arkansas’ 81-77 overtime victory in a classic benefiting our state’s tornado victims.

“To think that our season-ticket holders were not involved and we still sold the building out,” Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman said. “That’s awesome.”

Especially awesome given the October timing a month before the Nov. 29 game SEC/ ACC Challenge game with perpetual power Duke at Walton Arena.

“20,000 people before Halloween,” Musselman said. “I don’t know many places that can do that. I really don’t.”

That should never be discounted. Yet among Walton Arena renovation proposals are creating space for more luxury areas while possibly removing 1,500 to 2,000 regular seats.

The Razorbacks’ lifeblood always has pumped throughout all their fans, not just their wealthiest.

FILLING TO DO LIST

Chris Bucknam’s Razorbacks men posted such an outstanding 2023 track season, with SEC Indoor and Outdoor Championships, an NCAA Indoor Championship and

NCAA Outdoor runner-up, it gets forgotten they didn’t win the 2022 SEC Cross Country Championship.

Not by them, it didn’t. Though Alabama was favored, Bucknam and his Hogs took personally the Tide’s winning 59 points in Oxford, Miss., with Arkansas and Tennessee tied for second at 64.

This fall the Hogs ran cross country with vengeance. Even as one of 23 teams running Oct. 14 the Pre-Nationals race in Charlottesville, Va., site of the Nov. 18 NCAA Championships, Arkansas won prepping for last Friday’s SEC Championships in Columbia, S.C., as for the Nationals.

Alabama didn’t run Pre-Nationals but Tennessee did and was obliterated 35-89 by the winning Hogs and individual winner Ben Shearer.

Last Friday in Columbia as a team led by Patrick Kiproc’s runner-up, Shearer, fifth, Kirani Yego, sixth, Elias Schreml 12th, and Reuben Reina, 13th, nationally No. 8 Arkansas tallied 38 points to Alabama’s 57 and Tennessee’s 59.

“It was one of two items on the 2023 to do list to get our SEC trophy back from Alabama today,” Bucknam said upon Friday’s return to Fayetteville. “Our team ran very well! We didn’t run quite as loose and carefree like we did two weeks ago with our big Pre-Nationals win, but you know there was no trophy on the line then. We ran a bit more cautious but we got the job done.”

And with some different people. Reina, the son of former Razorback Olympic great Reuben Reina Sr., didn’t score as seventh man at PreNats. Reina clinched the SEC crown as Arkansas’ fifth and final scorer.

“Reuben was one of our keys to victory,” Bucknam said. “He’s only a sophomore and for the first time made a big impact in an Arkansas SEC title win. This experience will bode well for us when we tackle the NCAA meet in a few weeks.”