You may not have noticed him yet - after all, no points in only three games played is hardly an eye-catching performance - but the addition of sophomore guard Stephen Cox to this year’s basketball team has our staff of walk-on historians abuzzing. Decked out in horn-rimmed glasses and tweed jackets with suede elbow patches, these men like nothing more than to down several glasses of brandy and discuss the careers of Guy Whitney, Reggie Merritt and the like until the wee hours, all the while thoughtfully stroking their goatees.

Only time will tell what place Mr. Cox will ultimately have in their conversations, but with it being sort of a slow news week as we await the start of conference play, we thought we would take a moment to give some Razorback basketball walk-ons their day in the sun (if that’s what you can call being discussed on an obscure blog). Without further ado:

Greatest Walk-On: Eugene Nash, a guard who played for Eddie Sutton from 1978 to 1982. Eugene wasn’t the best player who walked on (more on that in a sec), but he gets this nod because he fulfilled the walk-on’s typical role - that of human victory cigar - like no other. In my years of following Hog hoops, I’ve never seen the fans cotton to a walk-on the way they did to Nash. The waning minutes of blowout wins were inevitably accompanied by the booming crowd chants of “Eu-GENE! Eu-GENE! Eu-GENE!” (At an early 1980s game in Little Rock’s Barton Coliseum, the fans were chanting that when the PA man announced - in a somewhat huffy tone - “Please stop chanting, ‘Eugene, Eugene.’ Mr. Nash is sick tonight and is at the team hotel.”)

Eugene’s greatest moment came when he stole the ball, sprinted the length of the court and electrified the crowd with a slam dunk. I remember hearing that t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “Eugene, Eugene, the dunking machine!” were spotted on the UA campus in the days afterwards.

(Read on …)

If we did, maybe it would have been the Hogs rolling over inferior competition en route to a gaudy regular season record and a spot in the mythical national title game (where, it still being a bowl game, we would have been destroyed…naturally). But, the Hogs don’t play in the Big 10 so instead it was Ohio State out there getting its butt kicked by LSU.

Our sincere congratulations go to LSU. They’re obviously a very tough team, and it’s nice to see an SEC school holding that championship trophy. And from a Razorback perspective, the best part about the game is that we can forever remind the Tigers that, despite their lofty poll status, our team proved itself superior when we met head-to-head on the field (here’s some priceless evidence).

So LSU fans, enjoy your big win and all the glory that it provides. But before you get too cocky, remember this moment:

Well, well, well: That was a nice win on Saturday. Hopefully, it’s an indication of things to come. We should find out soon enough, as SEC play begins Thursday with a nationally televised vist to Auburn. In the meantime, here are some items of interest from ’round the Web:

* Rivals.com says Patrick Beverley is currently the 17th best shooting guard in the nation.

* One of the Razorbloggers files an eyewitness report of Saturday’s Baylor game.

* Still stuck on 798: Eddie Sutton has yet to guide San Francisco to a win, and he’s already decided that he won’t be sticking around the Bay Area after the season ends. Still, he sounds like he’s in pretty good spirits and is enjoying one final round of coaching.

* The wrath of Pelphrey: The new coach notched his fourth technical foul in the Baylor victory.

* Nutts About Oxford: The Jackson Clarion-Ledger newspaper has an interesting article on Houston Nutt’s move to Ole Miss. Says Houston: “It’s been rejuvenating.” (Link courtesy of ArkansasSports360.com.)

With tonight’s game against Baylor in Dallas, I imagine that many Razorback basketball fans are remembering the abundant good times that the program has enjoyed in the city. Among the highlights: the 1990 and 1994 NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional championships, and the 1982, ‘89, ‘90 and ‘91 Southwest Conference Tournament championships.

Trying to pick my favorite Dallas moment is tough, but if forced to choose, I would go with the 1990 Midwest Regional victory. Obviously, the 1994 tournament is a better overall memory than the 1990 one, but I think the ‘90 NCAA games in Dallas were more exciting than the ones four years later, plus they marked the first time I had ever watched a Hog team clinch a trip to the Final Four.

Nearly 18 years ago, the Hogs came to Dallas after having dispatched of Princeton and Dayton in the first and second rounds, respectively, of the NCAAs. In their third-round match-up in old Reunion Arena, the Hogs, led by the underrated Lenzie Howell’s 25 points, blew away Dean Smith and the North Carolina Tar Heels by a score of 96-73. Granted, that wasn’t one of Smith’s better Sweet 16 teams, but still: after Nolan Richardson had struggled for much of the late 1980s to get the program back on its feet, watching the Razorbacks so thoroughly whip UNC was pretty damn exciting.

(Read on …)

My holidays were going just swimmingly until last weekend, when I caught a nasty little cold that knocked me flat on my ass for a day or so. My halting recovery didn’t get much help when I forced myself to sit through that thoroughly miserable Cotton Bowl. Add in a return to work - with the attendant mountain of e-mails and voice messages that had piled up during the break - and I’ve definitely been fighting a case of the post-holiday blahs.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure the basketball team will be providing help anytime soon.

Until the last year or so of the Nolan Richardson era, few things were more anti-blah for me than Razorback basketball. And after John Pelphrey took control of the program last spring, I couldn’t help but believe that the Hog hoopsters, seemingly so talented, would immediately start providing liberal amounts of feel-good therapy once again.

I remain very confident about the future of the program under Pelphrey. But the team’s performance so far makes me worry that the 2007-08 season will be yet another ho-hum (or worse) year. The trademarks of the Stan Heath Razorbacks - the turnovers, the boneheaded late-game decisions, the constant heaving of bricks - are still on display, and I’m afraid they will continue to be until Pelphrey’s highly-rated first recruiting class arrives next year.

The season is still somewhat young, and several moons ago, I cautioned against making too much of the early part of the schedule. However … the season is not that young anymore. Thirteen games of largely uninspiring play is legitimate reason to scale back one’s optimism; perhaps this current crop of Razorbacks just isn’t that good.

The conference season is almost upon us, and the accompanying increase in regionally and nationally televised games will make it easier for me to follow the team. And watch I will, hoping for that big win or two that might finally get this team on track. But I will tune in with adjusted expectations, with the realization that it likely won’t be until next year that Razorback basketball is once again a steady source of good times.

One of the more underrated recent subplots of the ongoing soap opera that is Razorback football is the “will he or won’t he” status of Felix Jones and the NFL draft. Although he’s spent his Arkansas career in the shadow of that other legendary runner (in the eyes of the national media, at least), it cannot be stressed enough that Felix is REALLY DAMN GOOD in his own right and would probably make some lucky NFL team very happy next year.

Although some reports have him projected as a likely first round pick in April, there are a lot of talented RBs out there (this was the “Year of the Running Back“, after all) so perhaps he’d like to spend his senior year in the spotlight where he could rack up gaudy stats in Bobby Petrino’s offense and presumably earn himself a few extra million by boosting himself into a better draft position.

All in all, that’s a lot to think about for someone who’s not even of legal drinking age yet. It’s the opinion of this blogger that he’ll probably leave early but until we know for sure there’s still a little room for hope. At any rate, his deadline to decide is January 15th, so we’ll know soon.

After his excellent work before and after the LSU game and his top-notch pre-Cotton Bowl analysis, we once again turn to one of our favorite commenters, Tab Prewett, to get his thoughts on the New Year’s Day bloodletting in Dallas. So, sit back and enjoy his feisty take on the latest sorry chapter in Arkansas’ pathetic bowl history:

Losing breeds negativity, and we’re now left with nine months of negative memories of the Nutt era, each inept area on prominent display yesterday. Fortunately, the Nutt era is finished because I don’t think I could stand another few years of special teams bumbles, offensive dullness, defensive inconsistency and terrible quarterback play. What was consistent about Nutt’s teams was their inconsistency. Like the emotions of the man himself, when Nutt’s teams were down, they were awful.

The main reason we even played in the Cotton Bowl was in homage to both Broyles’ legacy and the certainty that Arkansas fans would buy a large number of tickets and secure a Cotton Bowl profit. Truthfully, neither team should have been in the Cotton Bowl. We deserved lesser, Missouri greater. Because of our tradition of impeccable Dallas attendance, we got thrown into a game against a superior team motivated to show it deserved more respect, while we had to play amidst the chaos of a coaching search and with the self-satisfaction of just being glad to be there. Scarily, it could have been much worse.

When Missouri stuffed the I-formation numerous times in the first half, I kept waiting for a total commitment to the WildHog. David Lee stuck though to the standard offense, and we suffered because of it. With no blocking, Darren and Felix had no hope. When we went to the Wildhog in the third quarter and scored, I thought maybe Lee would see the light. But, no, like a trained dog, he went back to his Nutt tricks, hoping against all odds that Casey Dick would suddenly make plays. We’ve all seen Dick under pressure before, and it’s an ugly sight.

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What do Oklahoma (twice), Georgia (twice), UCLA, Tennessee, North Carolina, Michigan, UNLV, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri have in common? They’ve all defeated the Hogs in bowl games during our current stretch of bowl futility…that’s 12 losses in the last 14 postseason games if you’re counting.

Why are the Hogs so bad in bowls? If you have a good theory, I’d love to hear it in the comments section because I’m out of ideas. There doesn’t seem to be much of a common thread other than the little white Razorback logos on the helmets…different coaches, different players, different opponents (some good, others not so good). Some haters might blame Frank Broyles, but he was never down on the field making things happen (or not) so I don’t buy that.

I know it’s not a fundamental law of the universe that we must lose bowl games because we were actually doing pretty well for awhile there…six wins and only three losses between 1975-1985. So what’s the deal?

Personally, I think the whole bowl/poll/BCS system is an incredibly dumb way to determine a “champion” and would be first in line for a playoff if the Powers That Be ever came to their senses about that whole situation. But, it would still be nice to win a bowl game every now and then.

First of all, a standard-issue Razorback bowl loss is just a depressing way to end a season. And more importantly, the way you play during your bowl game is hugely important in setting the scene for the next season…a bowl win helps you in the preseason rankings which puts you in position for a better bowl and so on and so forth.

On the bright side, the 2008 Cotton Bowl gives Stephen and me more fodder for the “Hogs always lose their bowl games” jokes that we love so well. And who knows, maybe the Bobby Petrino era will see a turnaround in our bowl fortunes. At any rate, it’s behind us now…onward and upward.

Wow. In a bowl history full of pathetic performances and miserable results, this game was epically bad (let’s hope that Bobby Petrino isn’t on the phone with his agent right now, trying to find something better). That’s actually kind of impressive in its own sad way.

Anyway, I guess I should have listened to my head, not my heart. We’ll have more thoughts on the Cotton Bowl later, and then will mercifully move on to more pleasant topics.

Happy New Year, everybody.