FAYETTEVILLE — Working overtime in Walton Arena keeps paying off for Arkansas this season.
The Razorbacks improved to 3-0 in overtime games at home with their 82-79 victory over Auburn on Saturday before a season-high announced crowd of 15,036.
Earlier this season, Arkansas beat Appalachian State 81-72 and Missouri State 66-62 in overtime games.
In all three games, the Razorbacks led in the final seconds but the opposing team scored to force overtime.
“We’re dying to play extra minutes,” Arkansas Coach John Pelphrey said. “Maybe we just like playing in front of our fans, I don’t know.”
Freshman forward Marshawn Powell said it’s “because of the crowd” that the Razorbacks are 3-0 in overtime.
“They’re relentless,” Powell said. “They don’t ever stop until they know we’ve got the win. We just keep fighting.”
The Razorbacks (12-11, 5-3) have fought their way to a four game winning streak and sole possession of first place in the SEC West at the halfway point of the conference schedule.
Arkansas plays LSU (0-9 SEC) twice in the schedule’s second half, beginning Wednesday night in Walton Arena, and has home games against Vanderbilt (6-2), Ole Miss (5-4) and South Carolina (4-4) and road games against Tennessee (6-2), Alabama (3-6) and Auburn (2-6).
“Let’s not get too carried away,” Pelphrey said of the Razorbacks leading the West at this point. “This is eight games. It’s a very, very fragile thing.”
Pelphrey noted the season isn’t over, just as it wasn’t over when Arkansas lost at Kentucky 101-70 on Jan. 23 before beginning its winning streak.
“There is a lot of basketball to be played and anything can happen, and it usually does,” Pelphrey said. “Hopefully, a lesson that everyone learns with basketball and life is that you get up and you go to work the next day, no matter what happened the day before.
“Understand that if it’s bad, the way to make something good happen is to go and have a great attitude and work. If something really good happened to you, don’t think you’re the best thing since canned pop, because you’re not.
“You better stay humble and hungry and keep working. Anything else besides that is just fool’s gold. Something bad will happen to you.”
Beating Auburn marked the Razorbacks’ fourth game in 10 days, and they had to rally from deficits of 11, 8, 15 and 9 points in their winning streak.
“We haven’t done too bad with us playing a lot of games,” Pelphrey said. “Obviously, we can’t hold up.
“If we had to play again on Tuesday, I don’t know what would have happened. We may have had to call the game off. We’re exhausted.”
The Razorbacks can’t be tired of winning, but Pelphrey said that doesn’t mean they’re having fun.
“Make no mistake, there’s nothing fun about this. This is work,” Pelphrey said. “We’ll have fun in the summertime.”
Sports, Pages 13 on 02/08/2010