Arkansas’ most improved player is its leading returning scorer

Arkansas Lady Razorbacks guard Malica Monk (3) enters the court at the beginning of a basketball game against Northeastern State Riverhawks on Thursday, November 2, 2017 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville. Northeastern State Riverhawks fell to the Arkansas Lady Razorbacks, 82-74

— Mike Neighbors’ answer came as a bit of a surprise.

Asked who was Arkansas’ most improved player this season, Neighbors’ answer was Malica Monk, the senior guard who led the Razorbacks with 15.9 points per game last season.

“She already was one of our better ones, but she looks so comfortable, so confident, so in shape,” said Neighbors, now in his second season coaching his alma mater. “I can’t believe how much further ahead she is than I thought she might be.”

The light came on for several players, Neighbors said, when the Razorbacks defeated Vanderbilt in the first round of the SEC Tournament in March, just days after losing to the Commodores to end the regular season. Arkansas’ season ended the following day when Gary Blair’s Texas A&M team blew out the Razorbacks in the quarterfinals.

“That type of a finish was a springboard for a lot of these kids,” Neighbors said. “I’m getting calls from (head coach) Daryl Fimple at North Little Rock this summer saying, ‘Hey, Mal’s been in the gym every day this summer. She’s never in the gyms during the summer down here, but she’s knocking on my door to open the gym.’”

Monk, who is from North Little Rock, said she knew she needed to step up her game going into her final season with the Razorbacks.

“Last year was a breakout season for me to show people what I’m about,” she said. “Having this coaching staff believe in me, they show me they really care about me and how I develop as a player and a student. By them believing in me, that encourages me to do whatever I have to do to keep the team rolling.

“I want to get this team far into the (tournament) and get Arkansas back on the map.”

Chelsea Dungee, a redshirt sophomore who sat out last season after transferring from Oklahoma, said she has seen a difference in Monk since the team reconvened prior to a trip to Italy in August. The Razorbacks won all three of their exhibition games in Italy by margins of 8, 36 and 36 points.

Monk scored nine points in two of the three exhibitions.

“I think her attitude toward the team (is good) and I think Coach Neighbors has really helped her,” Dungee said. “Malica has come a long, long ways in that aspect. She’s continuing to grow like everyone else, but I think she’s doing a lot better.”

Monk is part of a guard-heavy rotation for the Razorbacks, but she will have several more options around her than she did last year when she led the team in minutes played. A’Tyanna Gaulden, a transfer from Florida State, was a blue-chip recruit out of high school and is eligible now after sitting out last season. Also on the team is junior Alexis Tolefree, a sharpshooter from Conway who has spent the past two seasons in the Mississippi junior college ranks.

The new look of the team was evident in Italy. Tolefree scored 16 and 23 points in the final two scrimmages, and helped pace the Razorbacks as they hit 13 and 14 3-pointers.

Dungee had 10 points on two occasions and Gaulden scored 12 points in an exhibition. Amber Ramirez, a transfer from TCU who was a McDonald’s All-American in high school, had 14 points in the final scrimmage. Ramirez won’t be eligible to play this season, but like Dungee and Gaulden last year, she will be able to practice with the team.

Arkansas picked up where it left off in its first exhibition game earlier this week, scoring a school-record 115 points in a 62-point win over Southwest Baptist. The Razorbacks close the exhibition season tonight with a game against East Central University, and open the regular season next Friday with a 10:30 a.m. game against Northwestern State.

“It’s going to be a rude awakening for teams to see those players and what they can do,” Monk said. “We had the pieces, but I feel like we’ve got a lot more pieces to fill the puzzle this year. We don’t look half bad. We actually look good.”

Arkansas’ women’s practices are every bit as intense as the Razorbacks' men. A recent scrimmage was intense, with both teams racing up and down the floor, and points modified for whether players made the correct plays that led to baskets.

Tolefree hit a 3-pointer to give one team the lead in the closing seconds, but Monk drove to the basket, made a shot and the free throw to give her team the win.

Neighbors refers to his style as "Race n Space."

“I haven’t played this fast since maybe high school,” Monk said. “When Coach Neighbors said he wanted to play fast, that’s all I know is fast. Having other players who can play fast around me, that makes the game easier.”

Will it make the Razorbacks more successful? One team objective this season is not to play on the first day of the SEC Tournament again. That would take a top 10 finish in the conference. Anywhere in the top eight or nine range could put the Razorbacks in contention for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015.

“We want to make it to the tournament this year. That’s our goal,” senior Bailey Zimmerman said during the team’s media day. “Me and Mal haven’t done that in the four years we’ve been here. So that’s what we’re really looking forward to.”

Neighbors said the Razorbacks are further along than Washington was between his second and third seasons there. The Huskies made the NCAA Tournament his second year and were in the Final Four in his third.

Part of the reason Arkansas is further along in the rebuilding process, Neighbors said, is because of the attitude in the locker room, modeled by Monk and other upperclassmen.

“I want to make sure the seniors leave a mark as the group that really helped us get (the program) headed upward,” Neighbors said.

A version of this story originally appeared in Hawgs Illustrated