FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas women’s basketball Coach Tom Collen is hopeful his team doesn’t view the SEC Tournament as the end of a long road.
The fifth-seeded Razorbacks (21-7) go for their first conference tournament victory in seven years when they play 12th-seeded Ole Miss (12-17) in a first-round game scheduled for 6:30 tonight at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn.
Arkansas tied for fourth in conference with a 10-6 regular-season mark — matching its best finish since joining the SEC — and had season highlights with an eight-game conference winning streak and beating Tennessee in Knoxville.
Those are nice accomplishments, which helped Collen earn SEC Coach of the Year honors Wednesday, but the team’s longstanding goals remain. The Razorbacks have been itching to win a conference tournament game and earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s pretty big to our kids, especially to our seniors who have gone down there the last three years and come away empty handed,” Collen said. “It’s another challenge. We hold up a lot of things that we want to accomplish and that was one of our goals from the very beginning.”
Arkansas has extra incentive, thanks to Ole Miss’ 60-54 victory against the Razorbacks on Jan. 12 in Oxford. The loss was Arkansas’ fourth consecutive to start conference play, and Collen said watching the game film this week was depressing.
“We all have kind of bad memories of that,” Collen said. “It’s a loss that left a bitter taste in our mouths.”
Collen reminded his players before practices this week they could either accept the season has been a success or bear down and make it better.
“There are so many things out there for us to accomplish,” Collen said. “The one thing we don’t want to do is feel like we’ve already arrived and done what we can do. We don’t want to go on spring break. We want to go to the NCAA Tournament and make a deep run if we can.”
Senior forward Ashley Daniels said an SEC Tournament victory and NCAA berth have been goals for the senior class since each player signed as part of Collen’s first recruiting class. Part of Arkansas’ motivation, Daniels said, is the need to continue to prove the program is for real.
“This year it still feels like we’re on that mission of having to prove ourselves,” Daniels said. “At the same time we’re not as worried because there is so much ahead of us. We’re just taking it one step at a time.
“We still feel there is more ahead of us and more to come so we can’t settle for what we have.”
Collen said he is confident Arkansas has done enough to go to the national tournament and now the Razorbacks are playing to improve their possible seeding. But Collen said there is no guarantees, unless Arkansas wins the SEC Tournament, so the Razorbacks have to continue to grind.
“I thought we were an NCAA team a week or so ago but when we went in and beat Tennessee at Tennessee, that made a pretty big statement if there were any doubts in the committee members’ minds,” Collen said. “You don’t ever want to put yourself in position where you put doubts in their minds. I think we’ve built too good of a resume.
“I’ve looked at everybody else’s resumes and I feel like we’ve got one of the top 15 resumes in the country if we don’t do another thing.”
Doing nothing more is the last thing Arkansas wants to do.
Arkansas women
vs. Ole Miss
WHAT SEC Women’s Tournament WHEN 6:30 p.m. Central today WHERE Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, Tenn. RECORDS Arkansas 21-7, 10-6 SEC; Ole Miss 12-17, 2-14 SEEDS Arkansas No. 5; Ole Miss No. 12 SERIES Ole Miss leads 23-10 TV/RADIO Fox Sports Net/Arkansas women’s radio network
PROBABLE STARTING LINEUPS
OLE MISS POS. NAME, HT, YR PPG RPG G Valencia McFarland 5-4, So 13.7 3.5 G Amber Singletary 5-9, Fr 3.7 1.0 F Nikki Byrd 6-4, Sr 11.8 8.6 F Danielle McCray 6-1, Fr 4.9 4.6 F Tia Faleru 6-0, Fr 4.9 3.4 COACH Renee Ladner (70-82 in five seasons at Ole Miss and overall)
ARKANSAS POS. NAME, HT, YR PPG RPG G C’eira Ricketts 5-9, Sr 11.3 4.6 G Lyndsay Harris 5-9, Sr 9.4 2.2 F Dominique Robinson 6-0, So 7.0 4.1 F Ashley Daniels 6-2, Sr 7.9 6.1 P Sarah Watkins 6-3, Jr 10.8 4.7 COACH Tom Collen (21-7 90-64 in five seasons at Arkansas; 307-134 in 14 seasons overall) CHALK TALK Arkansas hasn’t won an SEC Tournament game since beating Mississippi State in the first round in 2005. The Razorbacks have reached the semifinals twice, in 2001 and 2002.
— Marty Cook
Sports, Pages 15 on 03/01/2012