Meet The Hottest Team In The SEC: Arkansas
February 8th, 2010 ║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink ║ Tags: Arkansas
Thirteen days ago Arkansas was handed its worst SEC loss ever by Kentucky, 101-70 in Lexington. That loss dropped the Razorbacks to 8-11 overall and 1-3 in the SEC. It turned up the heat on the seat beneath John Pelphrey’s behind.
Now… raise your hand if you thought Arkansas would win four in a row after that beatdown.
Didn’t think so.
Since that loss, UA knocked off Mississippi State by five, Ole Miss by seven on the road, Georgia by four on the road and Auburn by three in overtime. Those teams are a combined 13-20 in the SEC.
So the Razorbacks haven’t been knocking off the best teams in the league. But so what? When you lose 101-70 and your team is reeling, it takes quite an effort to climb off the mat and fight another round. The Hogs have won every fight since.
After the UK game, Pelphrey said: “Hopefully we’ll respond in a way that, if you’re an athlete you’ve got to have a short memory. If you’re worried about your last shot that didn’t go in, the chances are it’s going to hurt you the next one. Obviously, we need to take the same approach this game. We need to learn from it, don’t discredit it totally, but you need to have a short memory.”
Mission accomplished. The Razorbacks are now 12-11, 5-3 in the conference and sitting in first place by themselves in the SEC West. Next up is a date with 0-9 LSU, so there’s a chance UA can roll up a five-game win streak for the first time since 2006.
“I am proud of the way the guys conducted themselves (during the streak),” said Pelphrey. “I’m proud of their effort. I can sit here and tell you it’s not great X’s and O’s that’s winning these basketball games. It’s not because of he wonderful talent that we have. We aspire to have that at some point in time. To this point in time, we’ve been fortunate but we have shown great toughness and heart.”
Enough toughness and heart to climb from the depths of a 31-point loss all the way to the top of their division.
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