By Robbie Neiswanger
Arkansas News Bureau • rneiswanger@arkansasnews.com
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas guards Rotnei Clarke and Marcus Britt walked into the interview room with looks of disbelief stretched across their faces.
How did that happen? How could it happen?
The Razorbacks had their first win in three weeks well within their grasp in the second half. But then something went terribly wrong. So trying to come to grips with Arkansas’ 68-66 loss to the Rebels in in front of 14,426 in the regular season finale in Bud Walton Arena was a difficult task.
“We competed really hard and controlled almost the whole game,” Clarke said. “Allowing them to come back like that in the end is pretty tough to take.”
It was a head-scratcher to watch, too.
Arkansas squandered a nine-point lead over the final five minutes Saturday, suffering its fifth straight loss in the regular season finale. The Razorbacks didn’t make a field goal in the final 5:22, allowed Ole Miss to go on a 10-0 run during the critical minutes to take the lead, then made some mistakes in the closing seconds that resulted in a senior day loss.
With it, the Razorbacks finished the regular season with a five-game losing skid. The streak knocked Arkansas from first to third in the SEC West standings, too, pushing it into a first-round game in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
Arkansas will play Georgia, the SEC East’s sixth-seed, on Thursday night at 8:45 p.m. The winner will advance to play Vanderbilt on Friday.
But Arkansas wasn’t quite ready to look ahead after Saturday’s loss. Instead, the Hogs were searching for answers, trying to wrap their heads around the things what went wrong in the home finale.
“We were in great shape to win the game,” Arkansas coach John Pelphrey said. “We just didn’t do it.”
The Razorbacks (14-17, 7-9 in SEC play) led nearly the entire game against Ole Miss (21-9, 9-7), a team still hoping to convince the NCAA Tournament selection committee it is worthy of an invitation.
Arkansas got off to a solid start, leaned on its defense to press the lead to 14 in the first half, and went into the locker room with a comfortable 43-33 advantage. Ole Miss went on a run to start the second half, but, even then, the Hogs responded and seemed to hold off the Rebels’ charge.
Arkansas eventually took a 64-53 lead when guard Marcus Britt — who scored 12 points on 5 of 6 shooting — hit a short jumper with 5:22 left.
But that’s when everything unraveled for a team struggling to win and started paying off for Ole Miss, which bumped its win streak to four games.
“Just to keep fighting, keep hanging,” Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said he told his team. “There’s an eternity left. With that shotclock, you can’t keep it between the tackles and run that clock out.
“You’ve got to keep playing. Obviously we did.”
Several things went wrong for the Hogs over the course of five minutes. But the heart of the collapse occurred with Arkansas leading 65-63.
After a timeout, forward Michael Washington took a quick shot off an inbounds play and missed with 1:06 left. Point guard Courtney Fortson fouled out of the game a few seconds later. Murphy Holloway stepped to the free-throw line and missed the front end of a one-and-one, but Terrance Henry grabbed the rebound, found Warren on the perimeter and the guard buried a 3-point shot with 53 seconds left.
The 66-65 lead was Ole Miss’ first of the game.
“It was a tough play,” Pelphrey said.
Arkansas never recovered. The Razorbacks had a chance to tie the game at 67-67, but guard Julysses Nobles missed a free throw. And, after Warren made a free throw to make it 68-66, Arkansas couldn’t capitalize on its final possession of the game.
With eight seconds remaining, Nobles drove into the paint and flipped up a shot blocked by Holloway. The ball landed in Washington’s hands, but the senior’s jumper fell well short of the target.
“We wanted to see if we could get Rotnei coming free off a double screen,” Pelphrey said. “We didn’t get to it. Julysses felt like he had a driving lane and obviously a two-point game you don’t necessarily need a three.
“It didn’t work out for us. Didn’t get either one.”
Ole Miss celebrated on the court after the game ended, while Arkansas filed to the locker room.
“Our margin for error was really small,” Kennedy said. “It was really a microcosm for our season.”
And a glimpse at Arkansas’ as well.
The Razorbacks fell further below the .500 mark and have painted themselves further into a corner. It’s not likely Arkansas can earn a spot in the National Invitational Tournament field and would have to win four games in four days in Nashville, Tenn., next week to go to the NCAA Tournament.
It’s a far cry from last month, when Arkansas won its fifth straight SEC game to improve to 6-3 in league play. The Razorbacks’ five-game losing streak is now its longest of the season.
“That’s basketball and that’s life,” Pelphrey said of the skid that followed Arkansas’ win streak. “I know where we were before that, too. Unfortunately for us we missed an opportunity here.”
