Hog Calls

Loss to Ole Miss not a season-ender

FAYETTEVILLE -- Mike Neighbors peered into the Ole Miss Rebels' SEC Women's Basketball Tournament mirror Thursday in Greenville, S.C., and saw his Razorbacks teams of recent SEC Tournaments past.

The Arkansas coach looked at his own team and saw those NCAA Tournament already in the bag teams that his Razorbacks upset the last two years en route to the SEC Tournament final and semifinals.

Arkansas' eventual 22-15 and 24-8 teams of 2018-2019 and 2019-20 respectively reached the final and semifinal of the SEC Tournament trying to play their way into the NCAA Tournament.

These Razorbacks, 13th-ranked and 19-8 overall with nonconference victories over No. 1 Connecticut and No. 6 Baylor, and finished 9-6 in the powerful SEC, entered Greenville as the hunted to Ole Miss' hunter.

The results reflected it.

The Rebels were 84-74 losers to Arkansas at Walton Arena during February when the Razorbacks had to rally from the injury-induced absence of All-SEC second-team guard Destiny Slocum.

Arkansas at full strength fell 69-60 in Greenville to an 11-10 Ole Miss team hungering miraculously to advance from the SEC Tournament to the Big Dance.

"You nailed it," Neighbors replied when asked if Ole Miss' zealous hunger and perhaps Arkansas' lack of it figured in the Rebels seizing a 17-7 first-quarter advantage to hold off the Hogs. "I did a really bad job getting them prepared for that. We ran into a team that was playing with a lot to play for and a ton of energy. This (Arkansas) group has been coming down here the last couple of years with that type of hunger. Tonight it was against us and that's what happened. That's on me because I've been through it and they haven't."

He gave Ole Miss its due.

"Ole Miss was very, very focused," Neighbors said. "They really made it hard on us to function offensively obviously from a 7-point first quarter and we were buttoned up from that point on."

He also gave his team its due ascending the NCAA Tournament that would have been their bid last year had not covid-19 pre NCAA Tournament last mid March cancelled all NCAA sports.

"We'll make sure that (Thursday's SEC Tournament letdown) doesn't happen in the NCAA Tournament," Neighbors said.

Some might figure that means boot camp for the Razorbacks between now and March 15 Selection Monday.

That's never how Neighbors figures it. Not with ranting and raving but positive reinforcement and common sense, Arkansas' fourth-year coach increasingly transformed the dispirited, 2-14 in the SEC Razorbacks off the season before his arrival into consistently cohesive winners.

He won't prescribe punishing pre-NCAA Tournament practices.

"The most important thing going into the NCAA Tournament is that we're healthy and happy and make sure we have our legs under us," Neighbors said. "This one will sting a little bit but they are not broken. They are just stunned a little bit and a good lesson learned."

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