FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas women’s basketball Coach Tom Collen knows the string of SEC teams on the NCAA Tournament short list ends somewhere around where his Razorbacks are positioned heading into the second round of the SEC Tournament today in Duluth, Ga.
Arkansas (18-11, 6-10 SEC) is bracketed with Florida (17-13, 6-10) in the No. 8 vs. No. 9 game today at 11 a.m. at the Gwinnett Center, with the winner advancing to face regular season champion Tennessee on Friday.
“It’s like an elimination game for the NCAA Tournament,” Collen said. “The loser probably loses an opportunity, and the winner probably stays on the board and has a chance to advance.
“The team that wins our game has the best chance, but both of us would probably need to beat Tennessee to have a solid shot. I think both of us are two of the top 40 teams in the country, but we will probably have to do something really special this week to get into the NCAA Tournament.”
The Razorbacks and Gators will tip off the second day of SEC Tournament today exactly one week removed from their last meeting, a 69-58 victory for Florida at the O’Connell Centerin Gainesville, Fla. Arkansas pulled into a 55-55 tie with 4:27 remaining in that game before the Gators pulled away with a 14-3 run.
“I’m sure they had a lot of fire in their belly after leaving Gainesville,” Florida Coach Amanda Butler said. “There’s a lot of serious implications going forward for both teams.”
The Razorbacks are coming off what was easily their best performance of the conference season, a 93-52 drubbing of Ole Miss that featured 60 percent shooting overall (36 of 60) and a 12-of-23 showing (52.2) from threepoint range.
“We probably shot the ball as well as we’ve shot it all year long,” Collen said. “We’ve been waiting on that forever. Hopefully we can carry that over.”
Collen said Monday he projected his current team to be a better shooting team than last year’s group, which made the NCAA Tournament field, but “it just never really materialized” and poor shooting has been the team’s pitfall all season long.
The Razorbacks lost five SEC games decided by four points or less or in overtime, and shot just 40.2 percent from the floor to rank 10th in the league. Arkansas also made just 142 of 491 three-pointers, a 28.9 percent rate that ranked ninth in the SEC.
Arkansas’ team defense kept it competitive all season, however, holding opponents to 35.9 percent shooting, which was second best in the conference behind South Carolina.
The Razorbacks will be led by senior Sarah Watkins, theSEC’s 12th-leading scorer (12.9 points per game), who led the team with 22 points on 7-of-8 shooting against Ole Miss. Fellow seniors Quistelle Williams (10.3 ppg) and Erin Gatling (5.8 ppg) are also heading down the homestretch of their college careers.
Sports, Pages 15 on 03/07/2013