The UALR women's basketball team is accustomed to playing teams at the Jack Stephens Center who boast impressive resumes and national rankings.
In the past six years, UALR has hosted -- not just played, but welcomed onto its home floor -- Texas A&M when it was the defending national champions in 2011, LSU when it was ranked 13th on its way to reaching the Sweet 16 in 2013 and Texas, when it was ranked sixth before it advanced to the Elite Eight last year.
Today's challenge might dwarf all of those, though, if you ask Coach Joe Foley, who said that No. 5 Mississippi State might be the best women's team that's ever played at the Stephens Center when it meets the Trojans at 6:30 p.m. tonight.
"I think they're a legit Final Four team," Foley said. "I think they're right there with South Carolina, Connecticut and Notre Dame."
UALR (5-4) puts a four-game winning streak on the line tonight against the Bulldogs (9-0), who are beating their opponents by an average of 24.2 points per game with five starters back from last year's team that reached the Sweet 16. Foley said he thinks they could have gone deeper in last year's tournament, too, if they hadn't run into eventual national champion Connecticut.
They have experience, size -- four of their top players are 6-1 or taller -- they can defend, holding teams to 56.4 points per game, and they can score, averaging 80.8 points per game.
They have a local connection, as well, with Little Rock Parkview's Roshunda Johnson, who is averaging 9.2 points, 1.2 rebounds, 1.0 assist and 1.0 steal in her first season with the Bulldogs.
Johnson, a 5-7 redshirt junior, is a transfer from Oklahoma State.
UALR junior guard Monique Townson said the Trojans accept the challenge of going against Johnson and the rest of the Bulldogs.
"We want to be the best, so playing against the best really helps us," Townson said. "Especially when we get into conference. It's nothing that we haven't seen before."
Townson said she thinks UALR has improved since it lost to then-No. 25 Texas A&M, 55-37, on Nov. 23. The Trojans haven't lost since, holding Saint Louis, Missouri State, Oral Roberts and Memphis to 50 points or less in each victory.
The Trojans are yielding 52.6 points per game, No. 16 nationally, and they've held eight of their nine opponents to below their scoring average. It's helped them notch some victories even despite an offense that is averaging 49.8 points per game, worse than all but six Division I teams.
"We've been playing as a team very well," Foley said of his defense. "I think we've been rotating and helping each other. People aren't getting to play us one-on-one like they did early."
Mississippi State, meanwhile, has scored 75 points or more five times this season and six different players have led them in scoring. Foley's biggest concern is 6-5 center Chinwe Okorie, who is averaging 10.6 points and 7.6 rebounds and is shooting 56.7 percent from the field.
"I don't know if it will tell us where we're at or not," he said. "It'll tell us where we're at against them. Against a Final Four team. But, for our conference, it's good we don't have to beat these guys for our conference championship."
Foley sees the same benefit in this meeting as he did in the Texas A&M loss last month, the Texas loss last season and the LSU loss three years ago. If UALR pulls off an upset, it would be the first over a ranked team since it beat Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament in 2015 and the third time Foley has beaten a ranked team.
The Trojans came close against Texas last year, when they entered the fourth quarter leading 48-35 in an eventual 66-56 loss. A victory today might mean even more.
"If you don't ever get those opportunities, you don't get to do that," Foley said. "If we hit a few jump shots we beat Texas and everyone is talking about Little Rock. So, for them to give us the opportunity, that's a good thing."
Sports on 12/13/2016