FAYETTEVILLE — Amber Ramirez will carry the memory of her game-winning basket 10 days ago against Auburn long after she’s left Fayetteville.
But University of Arkansas women’s basketball Coach Mike Neighbors hopes to help make another one this afternoon for the lone senior on the Razorbacks roster.
Neighbors wants the sharp-shooting guard from San Antonio to play in front of one of the bigger crowds in program history when the Razorbacks (16-9, 6-6 SEC) host Kentucky (12-11, 5-8) at 1 p.m. in Walton Arena. The game will be televised by SEC Network.
Though the Razorbacks will host Georgia on Thursday night, they will honor Ramirez for Senior Day activities today.
Neighbors took to social media recently, imploring fans to show up for a player, who has helped form a foundation for the Razorbacks’ unprecedented run of success over the last three seasons.
“I got to looking and figured out that Amber had never played in front of a top-25 crowd in our history,” Neighbors said. “I get it attendance is different in 2022 and there are a lot of factors. And maybe we would have [gotten one] last year.”
Razorback officials then came up with the 23-for-23 campaign pairing Ramirez’s jersey number with the No. 23 crowd figure in school history. So that makes today’s magic number 6,699 to cross that threshold.
For comparison, the largest home crowd this season was 4,265 against top-ranked South Carolina on Jan. 16.
Ramirez said that’s typical of Neighbors, who goes the extra mile for his players.
“I was really speechless, honestly,” Ramirez said when she found out about Neighbors taking to social media. “It’s what Coach Neighbors does for his players. To honor me, that means so much. He’s done a lot for me in my career.
“I’m so grateful, thankful and blessed for him to be a part of my life.”
Ramirez was recruited by Neighbors out of high school while he was at Washington, but she chose to stay closer to home and went to TCU. But she decided to transfer after two seasons in Fort Worth, reuniting with Neighbors in Fayetteville.
She will go down as one of the best perimeter shooters in school history. Currently, Ramirez has the top career three-point field goal percentage (.435) in program history.
Her 247 three-pointers are tied for fifth all-time and she’s currently 22nd all-time with 1,194 points— just 19 from catching Juliet Jackson at No. 20.
She also has the single-season school record with 106 three-pointers in the 2019-20 season.
Ramirez got an additional year because of the pandemic and she chose to take it and return for another season as a Razorback, delaying a possible professional basketball career. That was a game-changer for a Razorbacks roster full of freshmen and newcomers, Neighbors said.
Ramirez, the lone senior on the roster, has been a steadying influence and leader for the young group that’s been forced to navigate some bumps in the road along the way.
“Amber’s staying allowed us to be No. 24 in the NET [rankings] on Feb. 15 in year when the word rebuilding would probably fit,” Neighbors said.
Neighbors pointed out the history of Arkansas women’s basketball has had high spots, but usually they were also accompanied with lows. The Razorbacks already have more combined SEC wins over a three-year period (25) than ever before and they’ve got four regular-season games left.
Ramirez returning made sure there was no backsliding this year, after back-to-back strong seasons.
“For me, one thing I’ll always remember Amber for is not allowing that to be a possibility,” Neighbors said. “If she’s not here, we might have been picked 10th, 11th or 12th. Who knows what it might have been like without her?"
She said being the leader or the voice of the team is exactly what she wanted.
“I feel like I’m kind of built for it,” Ramirez said. “I want to learn. I want to teach. I think those things come naturally to me.”
Ramirez joked about her teammates call her "Grandma." She will turn 24 this week, but she was convinced her age and experience could be helpful with a roster that has five true freshmen.
“We have people turning 19 and I’m thinking, ‘Geez, I’m old,'” Ramirez said. “But I think I can be helpful in a lot of different ways with the things I’ve experienced.”
Neighbors said Ramirez has always been a leader of sorts, but this year has forced her to expand those boundaries.
“She’s kind of transitioning from being a leader to a mentor,” Neighbors said. “That’s kind of the final stage of being a leader, in my opinion, to give that ability to someone else and watch them and coach them up. She’s done that.”
Ramirez has endured her own challenges this year dealing with an injury she didn’t want discuss in detail. She got off to a slow start in nonconference play and even missed the final two games of the nonconference schedule before the Christmas break. But she’s feeling good now and coming through in a big way in SEC play.
Ramirez is averaging 20.7 points per game in league play and a team-best 15.6 per game for the season. She’s also averaging more than 39 minutes per game in SEC games.
But she will need to have a big game in one of her final appearances in Walton Arena as the Razorbacks head down the homestretch of the regular season.
Kentucky has won three in a row and gained momentum lately after dealing with injuries and covid-related issues that have depleted its roster at times. The Wildcats still have one of the top players in the country in 6-2 guard Rhyne Howard and that makes them dangerous, Neighbors said.
“Let’s go frightening,” Neighbors said. “I think to this point they would tell you that they’ve probably underachieved a little bit for the roster. … I’m not being critical of them. I’m just saying this is a team we [coaches] picked second, third or fourth in our league. They’re frightening and you know they can be explosive.”
Ramirez put the team on her shoulders against Auburn 10 days ago with three starters out. She scored a season-high 30 points and drained the game-winner in the waning seconds.
She’ll now hope to make another lasting memory today in front of a large crowd in Walton Arena.