Looking back as Arkansas plays 50th SEC Tournament game

When Arkansas plays South Carolina tonight in the late game at Scottrade Center in St. Louis, it will mark the Razorbacks' 50th game played at the Southeastern Conference Tournament.

Arkansas has a 24-25 record in the tournament - a loss for every season it has played there except for 2000, when the Razorbacks became the first team in 15 years to win four games in four days and clinch the SEC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

While the record might seem modest, consider that only two teams, Kentucky and Florida, have winning records and have played more games than Arkansas at the tournament since 1992. The Wildcats have won 15 tournament titles over that time; the Gators have won four.

Arkansas has made it to the semifinal round of half the tournaments since it joined the SEC and to the championship game seven times. But perhaps the Razorbacks' greatest influence on the event was in the stands.

During Arkansas' early years in the SEC it threatened Kentucky's establishment as basketball king of the conference, a fact that was apparent before Arkansas ever took the court at the tournament.

In 1992, the Razorbacks were new to the league and to play following a game between Kentucky and Vanderbilt at the 17,000-seat Birmingham (Ala.) Jefferson Civic Center. During the game Arkansas players began to become visible in the tunnel, setting off an ovation from the estimated 6,000 or so Razorback fans in the building.

Then-Kentucky coach Rick Pitino said of the moment later that day: "Did you listen to those Arkansas fans as we came off the court? That was unbelievable."

Former University of Arkansas chancellor Dan Ferritor called it "the loudest Hog call I have ever heard in my entire life. The entire arena just erupted."

It seems everyone who was there remembers it well.

"Our players came out just before halftime of the game before ours and the place just exploded with this roar that gave me goosebumps," said David Alphin, an Arkansas fan who has attended the past 40 conference tournaments. "I remember all the TV people saying after that, 'God, Arkansas has made a statement. This is unbelievable.' The only team back then that brought any fans back then was Kentucky."

Arkansas basketball was near the height of its popularity at the time the Razorbacks joined the SEC, two years removed from a Final Four appearance and with a roster that included three future NBA first-round draft picks in Todd Day, Lee Mayberry and Oliver Miller, and future Hall of Fame coach Nolan Richardson.

Arkansas' success at the SWC Tournament made fans eager to follow the Razorbacks during their early years in the SEC. Arkansas had dominated the SWC Tournament on and off the court to the point that Reunion Arena in Dallas was dubbed "Barnhill South" by many, in reference to the Razorbacks' home arena in Fayetteville.

In its final three years at the SWC Tournament, Arkansas won all nine of its games by an average of 28 points and all by double digits. The Razorbacks' final SWC Tournament in 1991 was especially memorable with wins of 108-61 over Texas A&M, 109-80 over Rice and 120-89 over Texas in the championship game.

Between 1977-91, Arkansas won the SWC Tournament six times and was runner-up three times.

"It reminds me of Kentucky right now in the SEC Tournament; as teams would lose, we would buy their tickets up," Alphin said. "I remember after the 1991 semifinal game, I came out and saw just hundreds of people from Arkansas out there holding up two and four fingers, looking for tickets. I saw judges out there doing that. It was just amazing.

"Reunion seated 16,500 and it seemed like for the last championship game it was 16,000 to 500 (in favor of Arkansas). It was just a roaring mob. It really was fun."

Kentucky fans provided stiff competition for tickets, especially when the Razorbacks and Wildcats were playing in the same session. But Arkansas fans were resourceful. Legend has it that some even contributed to the scholarship fund of other SEC schools just so they could buy their tournament tickets each March.

The Razorbacks expected to win as much as Kentucky in the SEC, and for the first handful of years that was the case. Arkansas was regular-season champion in the SEC during its first year in 1992 and again during its 1994 national championship season. The Razorbacks won SEC West titles their first four years in the new league.

Arkansas never won the tournament between 1992-95, but those years served as some of the tournament's most memorable, with Arkansas red equaling Kentucky blue in the stands in cities across the South. The demand for tickets by the two fan bases was a factor in the tournament moving out of small-market and on-campus arenas, and into the spacious Georgia Dome in Atlanta, where the tournament was held 11 times over a 20-season span beginning in 1995.

"It was blue and red; it was pride," said Pat Bradley, an Arkansas guard from 1995-99. "The cool thing about the tournament is that you can live in Los Angeles and for one weekend a year you can come cheer on your Hogs. We felt that. It was a nice reunion event.

"The Kentucky Invitational is what they used to call it until '92 when the Hogs came in the league. They travel, obviously, but we would look up there and see as much Razorback red as Kentucky blue. It was a source of pride, for sure. Our fans would compete neck-and-neck with Kentucky at the tournament."

The first tournament at the Georgia Dome provided arguably the SEC's greatest postseason game, a 95-93 Kentucky win over Arkansas in overtime that was played in front of more than 30,000 people. Both teams were ranked in the top 5 of The Associated Press poll and had played a made-for-TV game on Super Bowl Sunday earlier in the year.

Arkansas, which would go on to finish national runner-up, led by as many as 19 points in regulation and nine points in overtime, but the Wildcats closed the game on a 13-2 run. Arkansas coach Mike Anderson, then an assistant under Nolan Richardson, called it "a spectacular event."

Kentucky has proven to be Arkansas' kryptonite in the postseason. The Wildcats are 9-1 against the Razorbacks at the SEC Tournament, with all nine of the Arkansas' losses to Kentucky in either the championship or semifinal rounds and by an an average of 13.8 points.

Of Arkansas' six losses in the tournament championship game, four have been to Kentucky, including last season and in 2015 in Nashville, Tenn.

The only other program to have a winning record against Arkansas at the SEC Tournament is Florida (4-1). The Gators defeated the Razorbacks in the tournament championship game in 2007, part of a 10-game win streak that culminated in Florida's second consecutive national championship.

Arkansas has broken even or has a winning record against the nine other teams it has played in the SEC Tournament. (The Razorbacks have never played Texas A&M or Missouri in the postseason since those teams joined the league in 2013).

Arkansas has enjoyed its most success against Georgia, with six wins in nine games. But the Bulldogs have handed the Razorbacks two of their most frustrating losses at the tournament.

In 1997, Georgia's Larry Brown scored with less than a second remaining to beat the Razorbacks 65-63 at The Pyramid in Memphis, Tenn. The Bulldogs gained possession when Arkansas had to rush an inbounds pass after official Andre Patillo began his five-second count while the Razorbacks were still huddling from a timeout.

"It's a crock of crap, if you ask me," Bradley said of the call 21 years later. "You can't wait three seconds for us to come out of the dang timeout? If you're refereeing a 10-year-old AAU game and it's the 12th game of the day and it's 9 p.m. - but where the heck did he have to go? Those types of things are what irritate me about humans and referees.

"It's unfortunate when you get a dumb knucklehead call like that."

In 2008, the Bulldogs completed their improbable tournament championship run with a 66-57 win over the Razorbacks in the title game.

Georgia won four games in three days at the tournament, which was interrupted when a tornado struck the Georgia Dome on the second day. With significant damage to the dome and the surrounding area in downtown Atlanta, the tournament was moved to the Georgia Tech campus for the final two days.

Arkansas had advanced to the championship game with arguably its most exciting finish at the tournament. Seven-foot center Steven Hill hit a turnaround jumper with 5.3 seconds remaining and Tennessee star Chris Lofton missed a shot at the buzzer to give the Razorbacks a 92-91 win over the Volunteers, the SEC's top seed and ranked No. 4 nationally at the time.

Georgia, which had defeated both Kentucky and Mississippi State a day earlier, showed no signs of fatigue in the championship game. The Bulldogs led by as many as 19 points in the first half and negated Arkansas from winning a second tournament SEC Tournament title.

Eight years earlier, Arkansas went on a similar run in Atlanta. After beating Georgia 71-64 in the first round, the Razorbacks won their only tournament game against Kentucky, 86-72, in the quarterfinals, outlasted a talented LSU team 69-67 in the semifinals and defeated Auburn 75-67 in the championship game.

Arkansas had entered the tournament with a 15-14 record and would not have made the NCAA postseason without winning the conference crown.

"We just got hot," Anderson said. "That's the year I think Joe Johnson became eligible at the semester and we kind of rode his back. It was four games in four days and our guys rose to the occasion. Each and every game I think our guys got better. Their confidence grew in that setting.

"We played some great, great teams down there. The Auburn team that was ranked, the LSU team with Stromile Swift and that bunch. It was some good basketball."

Atlanta has easily been Arkansas' most successful tournament site. The Razorbacks have a 14-10 tournament record in Atlanta - the only winning record of the seven cities that have hosted the tournament prior to St. Louis - and played in five of the 11 championship games there.

"The memories I have (are) especially in Atlanta," Anderson said. "You'd stay at the Hilton or the Hyatt or whatever, but all the fans there - whether it be Kentucky fans, Auburn fans - all of them kind of conjured up. They've got their area over there, we've got our area over here. It's a great, great, great setting, a great sporting event."

Arkansas is 6-7 in tournament games played in Nashville; 1-2 in Memphis; 1-3 in New Orleans; 0-1 in Tampa; and 1-1 in Birmingham and Lexington, Ky. After this year's tournament in St. Louis, the tournament will return to Nashville for six of the next seven seasons. Tampa will host in 2022.

The SEC has pivoted away from large stadiums like the old Georgia Dome in recent years and back toward traditional basketball venues such as the 20,000-seat Bridgestone Arena in Nashville or the 22,000-seat Scottrade Center in St. Louis - both homes to NHL teams.

"I'm happy to see it more in basketball arenas," Alphin said. "Some of these things are so huge that if you are unlucky enough to have an upper-deck ticket, you can barely read the number on the jersey, much less the name on the jersey. That takes away from everything."

Alphin indicated Nashville has been a good host site for Arkansas fans, who can drive there easier than they can to other cities. The same might be the case this weekend with a close proximity to St. Louis.

"After Nolan left, it died down substantially, but I see (Arkansas' influence) coming back," Alphin said. "I see more and more people from Arkansas starting to pack up and go again. Kentucky still dominates - they have more than everybody combined - but I see Arkansas fans coming back."

Other Tournament Notables

Richardson's 14 SEC Tournament wins are more than all other Arkansas coaches combined.

Richardson's teams went 14-9 in the SEC Tournament after compiling a 10-3 record in the SWC Tournament. He won a combined four tournament titles in the two conferences.

Stan Heath went 4-5 in SEC Tournament games and John Pelphrey was 2-4. Pelphrey won his first two tournament games but lost his final four, including a loss to Tennessee in 2011 that was his final game coached at Arkansas.

Anderson's SEC Tournament record is 4-7, including a 2002 loss to Tennessee when Anderson was interim coach following Richardson's firing. Counting his game as interim, Anderson lost his first four tournament games, but is 4-3 since.

All four coaches advanced to the SEC Tournament championship game at least once. Richardson coached in the title game three times and Anderson has coached in it twice.

Arkansas' best round at the tournament has been the Friday quarterfinals, in which the Razorbacks are 13-1. The lone loss came to eventual national champion Florida, 74-71, in 2006.

Since the tournament was expanded to 14 teams in 2013, Arkansas is 0-3 in second-round Thursday games like the one it will play tonight.

Arkansas was 3-9 in Thursday first-round games played as part of the old format between 1991-2012. The Razorbacks are 7-6 in the semifinals and 1-6 in championship games.

The SEC Tournament has been a good predictor of whether Arkansas will make the NCAA Tournament. The Razorbacks have advanced to the NCAA Tournament each year they won at least one game at the SEC Tournament, but failed to make the NCAA postseason all 12 times they lost their first SEC Tournament game.

Memorable Finishes

Alabama, March 14, 1992, in Birmingham - Alabama's Elliott Washington made a 3-pointer with 1.5 seconds remaining to beat Arkansas 90-89 in the semifinals. At the time it was the most-attended basketball game ever in the state of Alabama with 17,689 in attendance.

Vanderbilt, March 10, 1995, in Atlanta - Corey Beck made 1 of 2 free throw attempts with 4.2 seconds remaining, but Vanderbilt was unable to get off a shot before the buzzer and Arkansas won 73-72 in the quarterfinal round. The win was the ninth in a 10-game win streak for the Razorbacks.

Kentucky, March 12, 1995, in Atlanta - Arkansas led by nine points with less than two minutes remaining in overtime, but the Razorbacks missed four of their final six free throws and Tony Delk made two free throws with 19.4 seconds left to give the Wildcats the go-ahead score. Kentucky won 95-93 after Scotty Thurman missed a last-second 3-point attempt.

Georgia, March 7, 1997, in Memphis - After Arkansas had taken a timeout with 14.9 seconds remaining, official Andre Pattillo placed the ball on the floor and began his five-second count while the Razorbacks were still huddled. Arkansas' Nick Davis picked up the ball as Pattillo counted to three and hurried an inbounds pass that was intercepted by Georgia's G.G. Smith. The Bulldogs' Larry Brown scored a layup with 0.3 seconds remaining to give Georgia a 67-65 win and send Arkansas to the NIT.

Mississippi State, March 6, 1999, in Atlanta - Derek Hood's offensive rebound and putback with 7.3 seconds remaining tied the game and the Razorbacks beat the Bulldogs 84-79 in overtime to advance to the championship game for the second time.

Vanderbilt, March 9, 2007, in Atlanta - Gary Ervin's jumper with 11.3 seconds remaining gave Arkansas the lead in a 71-70 win in the quarterfinals. The Razorbacks beat Mississippi State the following day before losing to eventual national champion Florida in the championship game.

Tennessee, March 15, 2008, in Atlanta - Steven Hill's turnaround jumper with 5.3 seconds remaining gave Arkansas a 92-91 lead and the Razorbacks upset the nation's No. 4 team in a semifinal game attended by only 2,517 people on Georgia Tech's campus.

Ole Miss, March 10, 2017, in Nashville - Manny Watkins' layup with 1:27 remaining gave Arkansas the lead and Moses Kingsley blocked two shots in the final minute to preserve a 73-72 win over Ole Miss in the quarterfinal round.