Since the University of Arkansas removed its ban against playing in-state opponents across all sports in the 2019-20 school year, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff found it difficult to compete step-by-step with the Razorbacks in women’s basketball until Sunday.
Given its flagship status across the state and success as a Southeastern Conference program, the idea of a team from a lower-level Division I conference with fewer resources beating such a vaunted statewide symbol such as the Razorbacks might have only been a dream to those who root for underdogs. But inside Fayetteville’s Bud Walton Arena, UAPB achieved what 15 other in-state opponents couldn’t in the past four seasons and beat Arkansas, 74-70.
“That means even more for UAPB to go to Fayetteville and beat them,” Pine Bluff Mayor Shirley Washington said. “We have a lot to be proud of.”
Washington is known to celebrate the successes of Pine Bluff sports teams. She was at UAPB’s H.O. Clemmons Arena last March when the Lady Lions returned home from their runner-up finish in the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
UAPB’s idea was to commemorate the highest women’s basketball finish since joining Division I and the SWAC in 1997, but critics knocked the affair as a celebration of losing. UAPB lost the championship game to Southern University, missing out on an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.
“I think they have a coach and a program that is an inspiration to the kids and that’s motivating them to perform at the highest level,” Washington said. “It’s indicative of what we’re seeing in Pine Bluff, what we’re seeing with our high school basketball and football teams. I’m hoping we can maintain the coach [Dawn Thornton] at UAPB. She seems committed to the program and developing a team at UAPB. With winning teams like this, it can’t do anything but help with recruitment.
“If all these things work together to build enrollment, the level of pride goes up when you have a team at the rate our girls are winning.”
Sunday’s win was a watershed moment for a 4-7 team that beat a Power Five opponent — or a team from the Pac-12, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC or Atlantic Coast Conference — for the first time in program history. SWAC and other lesser-resourced teams like UAPB often play big-name talent and pick up five- to six-figure checks in return to strengthen the bottom line of their athletic departments, but often come away with decisive losses.
The Lady Lions went into Fayetteville having beaten two teams from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and one other Division I team, Southern Methodist University of the mid-major American Athletic Conference, this season. (SMU is heading to the ACC next season.) They also lost their previous four games to Power Five teams — Oregon State, Oregon, Mississippi State and Clemson — by an average of 18.3 points.
But they were due for a breakthrough.
“Honestly, it’s a lot. It’s a big, big win for us,” UAPB graduate student Zaay Green, who totaled 21 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals, said during her interview with the SEC Network. “We really need this going into the SWAC conference, and I think this is going to help us to end the preseason [nonconference slate] pretty well.”
Green, a former Tennessee and Texas A&M player, is one of two Lady Lions who previously competed in the SEC. Maori Davenport is in her second season after transferring from Georgia.
And it’s fifth-year Lady Lions Coach Thornton’s ability to recruit that many who have been around the program say made the difference in their recent breakthrough.
“Being a native [of southeast Arkansas], I’m so happy for the Golden Lions,” said Cary Shelton, a Star City native and Lady Lions’ head coach from 2009-12 who is now an assistant coach on the Mississippi Valley State men’s team. “It’s huge for the city and Golden Lion nation and the SWAC. … It’s recruiting. You have to recruit the players who will be able to come in there and execute and do the things you need them to do, the small things and the big things, and then put it all together.”
Tanuya Washington Worthy was a two-time all-America performer at UAPB from 1988-92 during its NAIA days. The Lady Lions enjoyed more measurable success at the time despite playing teams not equal to NCAA Division I programs.
“This is a very exceptional moment for women’s basketball and UAPB because the struggle has been real,” said Worthy, who now lives in Houston. “Back when I played, those teams [like Arkansas] wouldn’t play us back then. The only team that would, we played in the LSU tournament. [Then-UAPB Coach] Rosalynn Landes was trying to get it to where Dawn got it now. At the time, the hype was in football with Coach [Archie] Cooley.”
UAPB’s win over Arkansas means a lot to women’s basketball, Worthy said, because a SWAC team defeated an SEC school.
“Especially from a player like me, a Kodak All-American, it’s astonishing,” Worthy said. “A lot of your HBCUs [historically Black colleges and universities] are looked at as a money-making game, but to get the money and the win, they’re going to look at us twice.”
UAPB Athletic Director Chris Robinson first enrolled at the school after Worthy’s freshman year and has witnessed the struggle all of its sports programs endured to reach a point where it can compete with a major program, let alone one that commands the loyalty of almost an entire state.
“You see the work behind the scenes, you see the grit and time put in to help establish a place for UAPB in the state, and to see things culminating the way they did today … I couldn’t ask for a better early Christmas present,” Robinson said. “So beautiful to see them work together. They kept believing, they worked together and they kept encouraging each other.”
The Lady Lions will have a chance at a second win over an SEC team Dec. 21 when they host the University of Mississippi. Tipoff is scheduled for 1 p.m.
Ole Miss will be the third Power Five program to visit UAPB after the University of Arizona on Dec. 18, 2011 (lost 67-37), and Arkansas on Nov. 7, 2022 (lost 70-50).
“Arkansas is in the SEC and has very good talent, but UAPB and Coach Thornton, to assemble these young ladies, those who played at Tennessee, Texas A&M, Rutgers and UALR, it shows we can achieve things in Pine Bluff, Arkansas,” Robinson said. “We may not have all those resources, but we can compete at that level as well.”
UAPB vs. Arkansas women’s basketball series history
Dec. 21, 2020, at Fayetteville: Arkansas 86, UAPB 52
Nov. 12, 2021, at Fayetteville: Arkansas 96, UAPB 53
Nov. 7, 2022, at Pine Bluff: Arkansas 70, UAPB 50
Dec. 10, 2023, at Fayetteville: UAPB 74, Arkansas 70