FAYETTEVILLE — Kentucky can beat you without beating you.
John Pelphrey sensed that as a Kentucky player, was warned about it as a Florida assistant coach and now guards against it as Arkansas’ head coach.
The adrenaline and emotion flowing over the top after beating the SEC’s most traditionally prestigious basketball power can run dry and hit bottom the next game out.
Already trying to shift gears from beating Kentucky to getting ready for Auburn today, Pelphrey cited it immediately after his Razorbacks surpassed Kentucky 77-76 in overtime Wednesday night at Walton Arena.
“So many times when I was a player when we did lose, that is invariably what happened the next game to that team,” Pelphrey said. “I’ll never forget that when we beat them when I was at Florida. Our equipment manager said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t go lose the next game!’ That’s the challenge for our guys. Go take that on the road and do that every single time. Overachieve every single night.”
Overachieve!
Yes, by that stage in the postgame news conference Pelphrey had taken a question about overachieving and, with tongue in cheek, requested media permission to use what has become called the “O-word.”
“Am I allowed to use it?” Pelphrey asked in a demeanor kidding but not kidding. “Is it OK if I say it?”
As coaches’ tenures run their course, a pet phrase that is popular during early good times tends to go south as times go south.
So two losing seasons and a 6-7 SEC record later, the “overachieving” that fans so approved of when Pelphrey’s first Razorbacks team in 2008 achieved Arkansas’ first NCAA Tournament first-round victory since 1999 became message board ridicule. Internet and talk show scoffing abounded as his Razorbacks “overachieved” at Walton Arena while demolishing an LSU team then eight games mired into a 10-game losing streak.
“Overachieving is a mentality,” Pelphrey said Wednesday night. “Overachieving is not a derogatory comment. Just because you have a tremendous amount of talent does not mean you can’t overachieve.”
He cited all-time great Michael Jordan.
“Maybe the greatest guy who ever played, Jordan, nobody worked harder or more fiercely competitive,” Pelphrey said. “He squeezed everything he could possibly squeeze out of his body.
“It’s not a derogatory term. It’s a work ethic that all the great ones have. It’s a mind-set. You can’t win in this league unless you overachieve, and tonight we were able to overachieve enough to win the game.”
On the same night that Arkansas overachieved to beat Kentucky, Auburn (9-18, 2-11 SEC) overachieved against Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
The Tigers didn’t beat the SEC West champion Crimson Tide, but at the same Coleman Coliseum where Alabama remains unbeaten, including a 69-56 victory over Arkansas last Saturday, Auburn pushed the Tide to the wire in a 51-49 game decided by a tip-in before the buzzer.
Given Arkansas’ 1-5 SEC road record, Auburn’s 1-5 SEC home record and both teams’ recent responses to adversity, today’s winner by any definition can claim it overachieved.
Sports, Pages 21 on 02/26/2011