Mike Neighbors knew when he made up the schedule it was going to be difficult in December.
Coaches don’t look forward to playing three games in five days, regardless of what they’ll say on the record.
“I probably would have called you a liar if you’d told me we’d go 3-0 in those games,” Neighbors said Friday morning.
And, of course, the Hogs just went 3-0.
Arkansas beat Prairie View on Sunday to start the week, then banged out an 84-80 win over a larger, more physical Nebraska team Tuesday night, then capped it off with a 61-59 win over Tulsa on Thursday afternoon.
Last year’s team wouldn’t have beaten the Huskers and probably turned around and lost on the road, too, two days later. Close wins over Texas-Arlington and Wisconsin fall into that category, too.
“No way,” Neighbors said. “We didn’t have the depth to overcome some of the things that happened to us. We may have gotten beat by 30.”
The Razorbacks got down 15-2 in the first quarter and it looked like things might get out of hand, but they finished on an 8-0 run to make it 15-10 at the end of the period. They made the plays in the fourth quarter to win it.
Less than 48 hours later was a road 115-mile road trip to face the Golden Hurricane.
“In a two-point game, we found a way to win,” Neighbors said. “We came out lethargic.”
It took a layup from senior Malica Monk after one of her drives down the lane to lock down the 61-59 win.
“The compounding effect of us starting slow, then playing fast probably worked to our advantage in the fourth quarter,” Neighbors said.
Like we said, nobody particularly tries to play three games in five days just before the holidays, but that’s how it played out.
“When we looked at putting the schedule together we knew it was going to be tough to get all the non-conference games in with everything going on,” Neighbors said. “We knew we’d have to play a condensed number of games. It was a real challenge.”
He got an idea this team was making strides in a closed game against the men’s practice team where the girls won, 109-108.
“You can’t reward a kid or the team if you don’t get what a win gives you,” Neighbors said. “Now they know what it feels like, looks like.”
That practice, plus winning three in a row, has allowed the Hogs to take a big step in learning how to win close games in the fourth quarter while building a 10-3 record and getting to No. 45 in the RPI as of Friday morning.
“That’s as high as anybody on this team has been,” Neighbors said. “We’ve played a lot of teams in the Top 100.”
It lets the team head into the Christmas break with what he called “a quiet confidence.”
“That’s a huge thing,” he said.
And it also led to the team heading in multiple directions from the Tulsa game … by car and airplane. They don’t have to return for a week.
“They’ve earned it,” Neighbors said. “This is the longest break I’ve ever given a team, even when I was coaching high school.”
Arkansas will play next Dec. 30 at home against Jackson State, then it gets serious.
The SEC schedule starts … with two-time defending national runner-up Mississippi State at Bud Walton on Jan. 3.
“They aren’t bad, are they?” Neighbors said.
As he pointed out, whoever came up with the SEC slogan “It just means more” was talking about all sports.
“They were dead-on for this league,” he said.
