Pine Bluff loss should jolt UA women’s team
Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s women’s basketball team escaped Sunday from the witness-protection program that surrounds Golden Lion athletics in general.
UAPB 74, Arkansas 70 — some 3,330 Walton Arena witnesses can attest to the outcome — serves as a counter-argument for those who insist UA teams schedule in-state opponents. This was the first such loss in women’s basketball since Arkansas State downed Arkansas in the 2005 WNIT second round at Jonesboro.
Then-UA women’s athletic director Bev Lewis, a nice person but perhaps insulated from her fan base, caught it from this corner for placing then-coach Susie Gardner in harm’s way against a vengeful team. Lewis, it is remembered, did not pony up department funds to ensure a home game for Arkansas, which the school did rightly for the 1997 WNIT championship game against Wisconsin.
That night, Gary Blair’s Lady Razorbacks, as they were then called, drew a big crowd to Walton Arena on a Tuesday night and, as under John Sutherland before, Arkansas reigned as WNIT champion.
Gardner, UA’s replacement for Blair when the 11-year coach left for bigger bucks at Texas A&M, never had a chance on a March evening at what’s now Centennial Bank Arena. A former co-worker who was there said “half the crowd came because of what they felt about Frank Broyles (UA godfather of athletics, not to mention its public protector); the other half was there to cheer for ASU.” Arkansas slinked home a 9884 loser to what are now the Lady Red Wolves.
Where do the Artists formerly known as Lady Razorbacks go from here after losing at home to a team (now 4-7) from the Southwestern Athletic Conference? I wouldn’t expect a big walk-up crowd Saturday in North Little Rock when Arkansas plays Samford (not to be confused with Stanford) in a 12:30 p.m. tipoff in Verizon Arena.
Arkansas dipped to 42-3 against the SWAC with its first loss to a league member since Texas Southern in December 1979. This lowered coach Mike Neighbors’ record against in-state Division I foes to 15-1 in seven seasons. In practical terms, it cost UA an in-state season sweep after beating Little Rock, Jonesboro and Conway opponents.
What any of this has to do with Arkansas getting on a par with the best Southeastern Conference teams is for sharper intellects than mine. Blair began mining Arkansas players (Shameka Christon and Joy Oakley from Hot Springs included) after stating he felt outside talent was necessary to compete.
UAPB got a spark from Coriah Beck, who scored 15 points with her dad, former UA men’s basketball guard Corey Beck, watching from the stands. Freshman guard Taliah Scott scored 31 points for Arkansas, where the recruiting net increasingly falls upon transfers and the roster has a dwindling Arkansas presence.
“We made history,” said fifth-year UAPB coach Dawn Thornton after a 42-28 second half propelled her team, previously 0-3 against Arkansas, to victory. “I think anytime that you have an opportunity to do that, you have to celebrate it.” Calling Neighbors “a legend,” Thornton added, “Never could I have imagined what that feels like to be able to beat Arkansas.”
Judged aesthetically, a brick company could have sponsored a game that the winning team shot 35.9 per
cent and both sides fared better from three-point range than within the circle.
UAPB controlled the boards — what UA women’s opponent does not? — with a 22-9 edge on the offensive glass. Neighbors’ team lost the board battle by 30 in its most recent game and by 7617 against South Carolina last season.
In its last three games, Arkansas has won on the road against a top-25 team (Florida State), lost by 15 at home to No. 2 UCLA and at home to a SWAC team that travels extensively in December for good-sized checks. You cool with that, Razorback Nation?
Neighbors, give him credit, can decipher a scoresheet, pointing out that “twenty-two offensive rebounds tells you that they were really playing harder than we were, especially in the second half. I’m not going to sit up here and make a bunch of excuses because I just don’t want to be that coach that makes excuses when another team kicks your butt like they did.”
After a 4-8 football season, Arkansas teams may be incapable of making their fans blush. Don’t expect a rebuke from AD Hunter Yurachek; he might be trying to sweeten the pie by adding Arkansas-Monticello to the roster.