FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas and Ole Miss, picked 13th and 14th in the 14-team Southeastern Conference this season, each eyed their Sunday SEC opener at Bud Walton Arena as a must-win to improve this season.
Advantage, Arkansas. Barely.
Junior guard Malica Monk's steal of an Ole Miss Rebels inbounds with three seconds left under the Ole Miss basket preserved a 73-72 victory for first-year coach Mike Neighbors' Razorbacks, who opened the fourth quarter leading 62-50. The teams were tied at the bottom of the SEC a year ago at 2-14.
Arkansas improved to 10-4 going into Thursday night's SEC game at 2017 Final Four finalist Mississippi State before hosting SEC rival Alabama next Sunday. Coach Matt Insell's Rebels fell to 10-4 and will host South Carolina, the reigning national and SEC champion, Thursday night in Oxford, Miss.
Ole Miss' Alyssa Alston missed an inside shot with five seconds left as she tried for the potential go-ahead basket. The rebound was tied up with the possession arrow in Ole Miss' favor.
"They were out of timeouts and didn't have time to draw up an inbounds play," Neighbors said. "Coach Todd Schaefer, (Neighbors' top assistant) had been on Ole Miss' staff and had scouted them. They put the big kid (6-5 freshman center Promise Taylor) in, and we went front and back on the kid and that left us with our back to the basket.
"They tried to make a play throwing it off Mal, but Mal swatted it away. Believe it or not, one of the very first practices we worked on that, what you do when you feel the ball is thrown off your backside. You are supposed to swat it away and danged if that isn't what Mal did and made the steal."
Neighbors acknowledged almost working himself over, picking up a technical foul during the Rebels' 11-0 run opening the fourth quarter to pull to within 62-61 before tying it 67-67 on Shelby Gibson's basket at 4:17.
Neighbors too loudly, apparently, clamored that a third foul be called on Gibson, the massive 6-3 sophomore post, who scored a game-high 21 points. The technical led to two made Ole Miss free throws and two more free throws with Ole Miss fouled after inbounding the ball.
"You always do (work yourself over for a technical) when it comes down to a one- or two-point game, and you know you cost your team a couple of points," Neighbors said. "But it was 11-0 in the fourth quarter, and I've seen film what they can do in the fourth quarter when they turn it up a notch. Our fouls started to mount and after that point on it was 11-11.
"Sometimes it has a funny way of working out after you get one of those things that you get a few calls. But I probably wouldn't have slept well if we had ended up losing by a point."
Gibson did finally foul out at 3:56. Off that foul, Kiara Williams hit the free throw putting Arkansas ahead, irrevocably it turned out, 68-67, with by Arkansas' Jailyn Mason and Ole Miss' Torri Lewis closing the scoring by trading 3-pointers with Arkansas up 73-69 at 1:15 and the final 73-72 with 54 seconds left.
How Williams, 6-1, and 6-1 freshman Taylah Thomas battled the taller and more massive Gibson and Taylor was "awesome," Neighbors said. Williams had nine rebounds, five points and four blocked shots. Thomas added six points and three rebounds.
"Kiara and Taylah met them in transition the way we talked about," Neighbors said. "They were at a size and strength disadvantage, but we told them be as hard to guard on your end as they are on their end. They battled."
Other than Taylor's basket after Gibson fouled out, Taylor was not a major factor in her first SEC game, but Gibson was huge.
"She's a very big presence," Arkansas senior guard Devin Cosper said. "It's different with somebody like that who can control her body to her advantage, but I thought Kiara and Taylah did a very good job against people about tripling their size. I'm pretty proud of them."
Nobody played bigger than 5-10 guard Cosper, picking up a double-double with a team-leading 18 points and a game-leading 11 rebounds plus four steals and a blocked shot while Mason scored 13, dishing four assists, and North Little Rock's Monk scored 12, dishing four assists plus the game-clinching steal.
Rebels Alyssa Alston and Madinah Muhammad, 18 and 17 points, respectively, supported Gibson's game-leading 21.
Leading all but once during its 37-32 first half and fueled by two 8-0 runs during the third quarter, Arkansas actually outrebounded the taller Rebels, 38-34.
"I was proud of the way our kids hung together," Neighbors said of overcoming the Ole Miss comeback. "That was the difference in the game."
Sports on 01/01/2018