It’s not likely that basketball teams will overlook a game with the UAPB women’s basketball team, at least not this season.
There was that win down in Dallas when the UAPB women beat SMU. But then last Sunday, the women did what the program has never done and that’s beat a Power Five program, which is a collection of the most prominent sports conferences in the nation.
For years, at the direction of Frank Broyles, the Arkansas Razorbacks didn’t play in-state opponents. The thinking was that to do otherwise would be to split the state. To do so would also create the possibility of getting beaten by what would only be assumed to be an inferior team.
But that has changed slowly and now the vaunted Razorbacks do play in-state schools occasionally. The Fayetteville women had a perfect 15-0 record against such foes — until Sunday when the scoreboard at Bud Walton Arena flashed 74-70.
Congratulations to Coach Dawn Thornton on recruiting such talented young women to play at Pine Bluff. That’s a sizable part of the challenge in fielding a competitive team — a team that held tough even though they were down 10 at the half. And high-fives all around, of course, for putting it all together on the court.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Everyone likes a good upset, an exciting David and Goliath kind of story. No one would have remembered the Razorbacks beating UAPB on a Sunday afternoon in December. But no one will now forget the outcome for a long, long time.
One thing that Thornton said made a point that’s been made many times before.
“We don’t even scratch the surface of what they have in Fayetteville,” she said, going on to talk about the heart of her young charges.
The point fueled the argument that UAPB has been underfunded for years.
The U.S. departments of Education and Agriculture sent Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders a letter recently saying that UAPB had been “severely” underfunded for 30 years to the tune of $300 million. The governor and her administration brushed off the suggestion, saying advice from the Biden administration was advice she didn’t need and that she would continue to support UAPB in her own way, which was to say not to the tune of $300 million.
Perhaps she would revisit the thought of making up for past sins in the way UAPB has been supported. And if she did, perhaps she would not be booed so vociferously at the next UAPB homecoming she attends.