Season ends, none too soon for hoop Hogs
Some University of Arkansas basketball seasons one hates to see end. This was not one of them.
If ever a team struck fool’s gold, it was Eric Musselman’s fifth in Fayetteville. All things seemed possible, perhaps the coach’s first Final Four appearance, after that Nov. 29 shocker over Duke. A record Bud Walton Arena crowd saw the Razorbacks spoil the Blue Devils’ first Arkansas visit, dizzying heights not approached again.
South Carolina, a January winner in the basketball palace of northwest Arkansas, issued an eviction notice in the second round of the Southeastern Conference tournament Thursday. The 80-66 Gamecocks victory ended in time for Razorback faithful to get a good dinner (may we recommend Monell’s, especially the Germantown location, to any Nashville, Tenn., visitor) and decide whether to watch the night session at Bridgestone Arena or sell their tournament tickets. Methinks traffic heightened on westbound Interstate 40, certainly by Friday.
Arkansas shook down the thunder, as much as this team could, in a 90-85 overtime victory Wednesday night over Vanderbilt, a team not good enough to exploit any edge from playing in its hometown and that got coach Jerry Stackhouse fired.
The Razorbacks played a strong second half and overtime, not predictable with this team, and briefly squared their record at .500. South Carolina, with SEC coach of the year Lamont Paris, was waiting — Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks might have been a trendy pick in the same spot — and, though they applauded the team’s comeback of the night before, some in Razorback Nation were underwhelmed with the bumpy nature of the victory.
The gong rang loudly Thursday before Arkansas landed with a kerplunk that could be heard back in Washington County (the Venesian Inn in Tontitown is one of several recommended stops to anyone passing through NWA; it has been so long, but is Mary Maestri’a, up the road in grape country, still around?).
Arkansas finished 1617; gone are the dreams of five wins in five days in Davidson County, Tennessee, giving the team a free pass to March Madness when the 68-team bracket was announced. Perhaps some used Thursday’s game as a get-out-of-jail card, Razorback fans who thought basketball would be a solace for a 4-8 football team but felt betrayed again and again by the Muss Bunch (do not get me started on the Artists formerly known as Lady Razorbacks; they could not beat South Carolina, then No.-2 UCLA or, one December afternoon at Walton Arena, that juggernaut known as UAPB. Auburn, a football winner in Fayetteville, ended that team’s hopes in the first round in Greenville, S.C., the Lady Gamecocks beating LSU in the finals in a show that bordered on Top Rank Boxing.)
Arkansas’ men had six defeats on Nolan Richardson Court, honoring the coach whose first Razorback team went 12-16 but built steadily toward three Final Four appearances in the 1990s.
Of those FF teams, only Richardson’s 1990 group won a conference tournament
(beating Tom Penders and Texas in the Southwest final at Reunion Arena in Dallas) but, despite not winning an SEC title until 2000, thrived in the league that the league that constantly reminds us “it just means more.”
For one thing, the Razorbacks shook proud Kentucky to its moorings with a 1992 knockout at Rupp Arena in Lexington. The rest of the SEC was forced to play catchup, which invariably happens when Arkansas wins big in any sport.
On an April Monday night in 1994, Arkansas reached basketball heaven, that team beating Duke with Corliss Williamson named Most Outstanding Player in the Final Four and Scotty Thurman making the shot heard ’round the Natural State, if not the basketball world. The final score on 4-4-94 in Charlotte, N.C. — Arkansas 76, Duke 72 — comes to mind for some like one’s phone number or age.
Richardson, though becoming rich in his adopted state, grew bitter against UA, especially boss Frank Broyles, who in 1985 named him the first black head coach in SWC history. A proud man — let him not be called a racist, for he counted a bundle of close white friends, some in the media — Richardson essentially fired himself late in the 2001-02 season. Arkansas eventually settled financially with the Hall of Fame coach, although it took forever to rename the Walton Arena floor in his honor.
For the record, Richardson is a fan of Eric Musselman,
another who, like Sinatra, does it his way. Only an NCAA Sweet 16 win over Kansas and the afore-mentioned win over Duke eight months later in 2023 have been especially pleasing to UA fans the last two hoop seasons. Louisville, Ohio State or some other school might come after him, Musselman’s $2 million buyout quite negotiable by current standards. But to paraphrase Michael Corleone: If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it’s that changing coaches for the sake of change is ill-advised.
These Razorbacks weren’t ready for prime time but at least did not go 0-19 (like Missouri) in the SEC. Wonder if that was brought up at Baum-Walker Field when the border schools met on the first weekend of SEC baseball?