FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas women’s basketball team could be tempted to begin focusing on trying to win the SEC Tournament next week in Duluth, Ga., rather than its final regular-season SEC game today when it faces Ole Miss at Walton Arena.
The Razorbacks (17-11, 5-10 SEC) defeated the Lady Rebels (9-19, 2-13) 77-66 in Oxford, Miss., on Jan. 31, but Arkansas’ seeding for the SEC Tournament will have to wait.
“We’re focused on Ole Miss right now,” Arkansas senior Sarah Watkins said. “In the back of our minds, it’s still lingering there, the thought of the SEC Tournament, but we do need to go out and get a win against Ole Miss. We can’t sleep on them.”
Watkins will be honored on senior day, along with Quistelle Williams, Erin Gatling and Kelsey Hatcher, who has been out since early January.
While Arkansas can finish anywhere between eighth and 12th for SEC Tournament seeding, the Rebels won’t be heading to Georgia after self-imposing a postseason ban this year in the wake of allegations of impermissible recruiting contact and academic misconduct that cost first-year Coach Adrian Wiggins his job Oct. 22.
“They have nothing to lose and everything to gain,” Arkansas Coach Tom Collen said.
Collen said the Razorbacks’ 69-58 loss at Florida probably popped their NCAA Tournament bubble aspirations.
“We’re still trying to make the NCAA Tournament, and I think we hurt our chances as an at-large team, but I think now what we have to do is go one game at a time,” he said. “We’ve got to beat Ole Miss, and we’ve got to embrace the fact that we want to go down to the SEC Tournament and have our best showing ever down there.”
Arkansas held a 60-57 lead with 7:54 remaining in the teams’ previous match-up before launching a 12-0 run to take control. Watkins finished with 28 points in that game.
“I went back and looked at the video, and it was really only in the last four minutes of the game that we pulled away from them,” Collen said. “The game was in jeopardy for the first 36 minutes.”
The Rebels rank last in the SEC in points allowed (71.3 ppg) and field-goal defense (44.3 percent), and Watkins said Arkansas must duplicate its effort from its earlier victory over Ole Miss.
“They’re not very big in the post, so we need to get it inside,” said Watkins, who made 11 of 15 shots in the first meeting. “They’re pretty athletic and they have some kids that can shoot as well, so we just have to guard their personnel.”THURSDAY’S GAMES Florida 69, Arkansas 58 Tennessee 82, Texas A&M 72 LSU 76, Alabama 42 Mississippi State 50, Georgia 38 Kentucky 90, Mississippi 65 Missouri 65, South Carolina 58 Vanderbilt 59, Auburn 44 TODAY’S GAMES - All times Central Florida at South Carolina, noon Vanderbilt at Georgia, 12:30 p.m.
LSU at Texas A&M, 1 p.m.
Mississippi at Arkansas, 2 p.m.
Missouri at Alabama, 2 p.m.
Mississippi State at Auburn, 2 p.m.
Tennessee at Kentucky, 2:30 p.m.
Sports, Pages 35 on 03/03/2013