Not surprisingly, the national sports media has failed to note the most obvious story angle arising out of this year’s Final Four: that all of the entries have played important roles in the Razorbacks’ NCAA Tournament history. To correct this egregious instance of journalistic malpractice (and because it’s a really slow time of the year for Hog news), we present this overview of the ways in which UCLA, Memphis, North Carolina and Kansas have either sent our spirits soaring or broken our hearts during March Madness.

UCLA. There’s some room to quibble with the following statement, but one could reasonably say the Bruins are the alpha and the omega of the Razorbacks’ glory years. In 1978, the Hogs arrived as players on the national scene when they knocked off UCLA, which was not far removed from winning an incredible 10 national championships in a 12-year period, in the semifinals of the West Regional. Seventeen years later, the O’Bannon brothers and the insufferable Jim Harrick ended the Razorbacks’ quest for their own back-to-back national championships and closed the door on the magnificient Williamson-Thurman-Beck(-and-Dwight!) era. It doesn’t take the most powerful observational skills to note that Hog basketball has never been the same since.

Memphis. Like UCLA, the Tigers are responsible for a glorious high and a shattering low. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first: In 1992, then-Memphis State, led by Anferenee Hardaway, sent the Hogs packing with a second-round, 82-80 win that was sealed with a near-last-second tip-in by Tiger forward David Vaughn.

I’ve tried my best to completely forget about this game, but due to my employer’s poor mental health benefits package, some memories still linger - for instance, the way in which Memphis native Todd Day, obviously seeking revenge for this game, looked like Michael Jordan for the first five minutes of the contest and then proceeded to score something like one point in the last 30 minutes, draw a technical for staring at the ref and foul out.

A truly weird moment took place when Isaiah Morris and Oliver Miller, both sprinting to the Arkansas basket with nary a defender in sight, couldn’t decide who should take the lay-up and passed the ball back and forth until most of the other players began catching up with them. As I recall, one of them finally converted the basket, but they made the play much more interesting than it should have been. We should have known then that the Hogs were in for a long afternoon.

(Read on …)

No, not the Arkansas Razorbacks. I’m talking about the new Arkansas Impact of the Premier Basketball League; the team has inked former Hog star Todd Day to be its head coach. Jim Harris of ArkansasSports360.com has the story. Todd never struck me as the coaching type, but I guess (or hope) he’s matured from his Arkansas and NBA days.

According to the piece, the Impact will begin its season in January and will play its home games in the lovely crowd magnet that is Little Rock’s Barton Coliseum. The article also says that Day mentions former Razorbacks Kareem Reid, Brandon Dean and - here’s a total blast from the past - Roosevelt Wallace as possible players. I guess Wallace will come in handy whenever Todd needs someone to break an opposing player’s legs.

Anyhoo, here’s wishing Day and the team the best of luck.

This is completely unrelated to the coaching search, but I’m ready to talk about something else while we await word on what Sir Tommy will do.

For a bit of light-hearted diversion, feast your eyes on this footage of Todd Day’s “fight” with Larry Johnson in the Hogs’ February 1991 loss to UNLV in Fayetteville. For those too young to remember or for those who have understandably erased this game from their memories, UNLV strode into Barnhill Arena that Sunday afternoon as the defending national champions, undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the country. Arkansas, ranked No. 2 and sporting only one loss, was widely thought to be one of the few teams - perhaps the only one - in UNLV’s league.

This game showed showed how wrong we all were. After a tight first half, the Rebels absolutely pounded the Razorbacks in the final 20 minutes. Five minutes into the second half, the game was over; only a frenzied garbage-time effort by Ernie Murray, the pride of Wabbaseka, gave the game its deceptive 112-105 final score.

It was in this game that Johnson famously taunted Nolan Richardson by saying, “You need to get you some men, my man!” Nolan decided Johnson was right and went out and signed one Corliss Williamson several months later. I’d say the beating by the Runnin’ Rebs was worth it, wouldn’t you?

[sorry…they took the video down from YouTube]