Arkansas gets its chance at home against unbeaten and No. 1 South Carolina

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

As an avid movie buff, Arkansas women’s head basketball coach Mike Neighbors is no doubt very familiar with the 1994 Farrelly Brothers’ classic Dumb and Dumber starring Jim Carey, Jeff Daniels and Lauren Holly.

One of the most remembered lines in the flick comes after Carey’s Lloyd Christmas character professes his love for Holly’s Mary Swanson, who notes the romance is not  likely to go forward.

In fact, she calls it a one in a million chance.

“So you’re telling me there’s a chance, YEAH!” an obviously  clueless yet optimistic Christmas responds.

That seems appropriate as Arkansas (18-11, 6-8) prepares to host No. 1 South Carolina (27-0, 14-0) Thursday night at 8 p.m. at Bud Walton Arena.

“Something uncharacteristic’s going to have to happen for them,” Neighbors said for South Carolina to be beat. “You don’t beat a team that’s dominant like this if you don’t have you A+ game on the night that maybe they don’t have theirs, so you hope for all those things to come together for one magical night. Bud Walton’s done that for us a few times.”

The Gamecocks, who have already clinched the SEC title, have won eight straight games against the Razorbacks, a program that last beat South Carolina 95-89 in the 2019 SEC Tournament.

That includes a 92-46 home win in Columbia last season and a 93-66 one at the SEC Tournament  in Greenville, S.C.

“You have got to respect them, but you can’t fear them,” Neighbors said. “…If you do, it’s over before it starts.  We have held our own for a quarter or two most of the times we have played them.

“I think our kids will be loose, I think they will play very hard against them and I am hoping we can kind of catch lighting in a bottle like we did in the SEC Tournament that year and make enough threes to stick around and see what happens late.”

Arkansas is coming off a disheartening 62-53 home loss to Vanderbilt, which served as Senior Day and a chance to honor graduate Makayla Daniels.

“I’ve never In all my years of coaching high school and every level, I have never had a tip off in which the entire coaching staff, the starting five and every bench player was literally in tears at tipoff,” Neighbors said.

“So it was good to get that out of the way and turn the focus to number one, undefeated and, quite frankly, untested. They’ve had some games that were close for a period.”

The opportunity to face No. 1 is exciting for Neighbors and his squad, which will be without injured freshman Taliah Scott, who will miss her fourth consecutive game while tending to a family issue in Florida.

“I think it is fun preparation,” Neighbors said. “It is a little looser obviously, a little less pressure than that game –  Sunday’s, which was packed  with emotion and pressure. Those two things working together to produce great results or disastrous results.

“I’m not saying they were disastrous, but you could tell we were emotional.” 

South Carolina had 6 players taken in the WNBA draft last season, but head coach Dawn Staley has reloaded and watched her team score 100 or more points on six occasions this season.

That includes in a win at Kentucky 103-55 last Thursday.

“I think the job that Dawn and her staff…did a great job last year with these kids that are doing it now,” Neighbors said. “They’re as dominant as any team has been through the regular season in a number of years in a year where there’s a lot of great teams.”

Four South Carolina players are scoring in double figures with 6-7 senior center Kamilla Cardoso (14.1 points, 10.1 rebounds) heading up a list that also includes the nation’s top 3-point shooter in 5-9 senior Te-Hina Paopao (11.5, 48.9 percent from beyond the arc), 5-10 freshman guard MiLaysia Fulwiley (11.3) and 6-0 junior guard Bree Hall (10.1).

A pair of sophomores in 6-2 Chloe Kitts (9.7, 6.5) and 6-3 Ashlyn Watkins (9.5, 7.2) are both close to joining that mix and are part of seven Gamecocks that average over 10 minutes per game.

Arkansas hosts South Carolina and then travels to Ole Miss on Sunday for a 3 p.m. game ahead of next week’s SEC Tournament in Greenville, S.C.

Wins in both or either would certainly help the Razorbacks, who are not projected to be an NCAA Tournament team right now per ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme.

Creme’s bracketology, which will updated Friday, has the Razorbacks currently as the fifth team out.

“We’ve talked a lot about perspective the last couple days,” Neighbors said. “No better way to test that ability than to go up against the best team in the country.”

Photo by John D. James

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