FAYETTEVILLE — There is little gray area left for Arkansas’ women’s team if the Razorbacks want to go to the NCAA Tournament.
Arkansas (18-9, 6-9 SEC) had an opportunity to greatly improve its chances Thursday but couldn’t hold on to a onepoint lead at Kentucky. Arkansas committed two turnovers in the last 17 seconds, allowing the No. 20 Wildcats to escape with a 55-54 victory.
Arkansas will try to put that latest in a string of heartbreaking defeats behind it when the Razorbacks play Alabama (15-13, 4-11) in the final conference game of the year at 2 p.m. today at Walton Arena. A loss to the Crimson Tide would seemingly erase any chance Arkansas has of an NCAA berth, unless the Razorbacks pull off a surprising run in the SEC Tournament, which begins Thursday.
“Our backs may be against the wall in that we may need to go to the SEC Tournament and win a game there,” Coach Tom Collen said. “I believe in my heart, if we find a way to win those games, we have an awfully good shot. We’re still on the bubble, and we’ve still got a good chance to get in.”
The Razorbacks, near despondent after the Kentucky loss, apparently have recovered, Collen said. The players were unusually solemn and quiet on the plane ride home, but the Razorbacks showed energy and optimism during practice Friday.
“Like Coach tells us, we’re on the bubble and we’re trying to get inside the bubble,”junior guard C’eira Ricketts said. “We can’t let anybody determine our future and our fate. We have to go out and play hard like we want it, like we earned it.”
Arkansas can look back at its conference season and realize how close it was to not having to worry about bubbles and selection committees. Of the Razorbacks’ nine losses, six have been by five points or less, and in several of those games Arkansas could have won with better last-possession execution.
Kentucky was just the latest example. Leading by a point with 17 seconds left, Arkansas failed to inbound the ball and then, after the Wildcats missed two shots, the Razorbacks rebounded the ball but committed another turnover, setting up the Wildcats’ A’dia Mathies to make the game-winning basket.
“You hope at some point down the line when we get ourselves into another close game like this, we’re going to find a way to win it,” Collen said. “That’s going to be the game that puts us over the top.”
Arkansas beat Alabama 57-53 on Jan. 16 in Tuscaloosa despite the Razorbacks committing a season-high 28 turnovers. Alabama plays an up-tempo style similar to Kentucky, which gave the Razorbacks’ problems for most the first half Thursday.
The Razorbacks held Kentucky to its lowest point total of the year while having their offense stir a four-game stretch of poor play. Arkansas shot 46 percent from the field against Kentucky after a string of seven consecutive games of shooting 37 percent or less.
“It’s just a shame that we stepped up like we did and shot [well],” Collen said. “Our offense came alive and we were near-perfection offensively, and we still let it slip away. That was the frustrating thing.”
Sports, Pages 31 on 02/27/2011