Dykes says Jackson back after benching

Arkansas senior Jessica Jackson drives to the basket during a game against Texas Tech on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas women's basketball team set a season high for points in an SEC game without its leading scorer Sunday.

Jessica Jackson, a 6-3 senior forward from Jacksonville, sat out the Razorbacks' 68-50 victory at Alabama.

But Arkansas Coach Jimmy Dykes said Jackson will play against Vanderbilt when the Razorbacks (12-6, 1-4 SEC) take on the Commodores (10-8, 0-5) at 7 tonight in Walton Arena.

Jackson, averaging team highs of 15.8 points and 6.4 rebounds, dressed out for the Alabama game and went through warmups, but she never got off of the bench.

"It was just a one-game decision by me not to play her based upon what I know she's capable of doing," Dykes said Wednesday. "I'm not going to let her do anything less than I know she's capable of being.

"She's been having a really, really good senior year, and she'll continue to have a really good senior year now going forward."

Jackson was a first-team All-SEC pick by the coaches as a junior after being a second-team pick as a freshman and sophomore. She ranks fifth on Arkansas' career scoring list with 1,708 points and has played in 125 games with 120 starts, including the first 17 games this season.

Dykes said he isn't sure whether Jackson will start tonight -- because the lineup will be based on performances in practice by all the players -- but that she has responded well after not playing at Alabama.

"I expect Jessica Jackson to have a great game," he said. "Absolutely."

Dykes said Jackson's benching at Alabama is not a lingering issue with the players.

"We talked about it as a team yesterday and everybody's on the same page," he said.

Arkansas jumped out to a 29-15 lead at Alabama (14-4, 2-3) in the first quarter, when the Razorbacks hit 12 of 16 shots. The Razorbacks led 40-18 at halftime and finished the game shooting 45 percent (27 of 60) from the field.

Freshman guard Jailyn Mason led Arkansas with 15 points, while sophomore forward Keiryn Swenson had 12, sophomore guard Malica Monk scored 11, senior center Alicia Cooley and junior guard Devin Cosper had 10 each, and freshman forward Kiara Williams chipped in 7.

"I was very proud of how our young players stepped up in that game," Dykes said. "They saw that we were without our leading scorer on the road and we didn't have a conference win and they just were really zeroed in and played really well.

"So I think we got a lot of good out of that day."

Dykes said he was honest with the players before the game about what was on the line at Alabama.

"We never describe it as a must-win, because if you don't win it now what do you do with 12 games to go?" he said. "But we did say we need to play this game with a no-surrender attitude.

"No matter what happens we won't surrender, and from start to finish it probably was the best 40 minutes we played all year and it probably was a little bit of a weight lifted off of us."

Dykes said he wasn't hesitant about benching Jackson with the Razorbacks on the road and winless in SEC play.

"As a coach you have to do what you think is best for your team overall," he said. "Every decision I make is based upon conversations I have with my staff.

"We come up with what we think are our best decisions, and I think we handled Sunday really, really well. We want to win games, but more importantly we want to win games the right way and build the program the right way."

Dykes said a good offensive flow contributed to Arkansas' SEC scoring high at Alabama.

"We really moved the ball about as well as we've moved it all year in our motion offense," he said. "I think we were a very unselfish team down there. Our transition offense was really good, and we made shots."

Arkansas vs. Vanderbilt

WHEN 7 p.m. WHERE Walton Arena, Fayetteville RECORDS Vanderbilt 10-8, 0-5 SEC; Arkansas 12-6, 1-4 SERIES Vanderbilt leads 23-7 RADIO Razorback Sports Network INTERNET SEC Network Plus

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUPS

VANDERBILT POS. NAME, HT., YR. PPG RPG G Rachel Bell, 5-10, Jr. 12.2 2.7 G Cierra Walker, 5-8, Fr. 7.9 2.6 G Christa Reed, 5-11, Jr. 10.2 4.3 G K. Clemons-Green, 5-7, Fr. 4.8 2.9 F Marqu’es Webb, 6-1, Sr. 6.4 9.1 COACH Stephanie White (10-8 in first year at Vanderbilt and overall) ARKANSAS POS. NAME, HT., YR. PPG RPG G Malica Monk, 5-5, So. 10.8 2.3 G Devin Cosper, 5-10, Jr. 6.8 2.6 G Jailyn Mason, 5-9, Fr. 7.8 4.5 F Jessica Jackson, 6-3,Sr. 15.8 6.4 F Bailey Zimmerman, 6-0, So. 4.1 4.4 COACH Jimmy Dykes (42-38 in third season at Arkansas and overall)

TEAM COMPARISON

VAN ARK

71.7 Points for 69.6 68.4 Points against 57.7 +4.1 Rebound margin +6.4 -3.4 Turnover margin +1.1 42.2 FG pct. 43.0 40.5 3-pt FG pct. 34.3 74.4 FT pct. 69.4 CHALK TALK Arkansas won last year’s meeting, 57-56, on Malica Monk’s layup at the buzzer. … Commodores Coach Stephanie White came to Vanderbilt after spending two years as the head coach of the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, where she led the team to the playoffs both years and reached the finals in 2015.

— Henry Apple

Sports on 01/19/2017