Arkansas hoopsters face No. 5 UCLA women Sunday night in famed Pauley Pavilion

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – The Arkansas women’s basketball team has made a trip to Los Angeles this weekend to take on No. 5 UCLA – returning a game the Bruins traveled to Fayetteville for last season.

The Razorbacks (3-1) will hope to avenge last season’s 81-66 loss to UCLA (3-0) in a 6:30 p.m. game at famed Pauly Pavilion that will be televised by the Big Ten Network.

“It’s a team that has really high aspirations for the NCAA Tournament and has built a roster that is really, really deep,” Neighbors said of UCLA. “Even if they do have kids out, they still have plenty of depth.

“Going on the road with a young team, it is always fun to see how we react, but I fully expect UCLA to be one of the best teams in the country.”

UCLA, who was 27-7 and lost to LSU in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 last season, hosts No. 1 and defending champion South Carolina next Sunday.

“I don’t know what (5-7) Kiki Rice’s status is because she hasn’t been playing, but you start with Lauren Betts anyway,” Neighbors said. “She is just different – a post player that can dominate in a lot of different ways.”

Betts averages 22.3 points and 11.2 board per game to lead the Bruins in both categories and had a season-high 31 against Colgate.

Texas A&M transfer Janiah Barker (6-4) had 18 points and 11 rebounds in a win over Pepperdine while guard Gabriela Jaquez (6-0), sister of Miami Heat star Jamie Jaquez, and 15 points in that same game.

The Bruins also have sharpshooting guard London Jones, who set the school record last season with 87 3-pointers, while All-Pac 12 selection Rice has not played yet this season.

“It’s still day to day, but we’re hopeful that we could get her (Rice) some minutes on Sunday,” UCLA head coach Corey Close told reporters. on Saturday. “I would prefer to bring Kiki off the bench, just to be conservative, but I haven’t made that final decision yet.”

Freshman guard Elina Aarnisalo has filled in at point guard while averaging 14.3 points, 6.3 assists and 1.3 steals per game.

“They present a lot of challenges,” Neighbors said. “They can score, they can defend.”

The Bruins started the season with a 68-59 win over Louisville in Paris, France and have since downed Colgate 81-63 and Pepperdine 91-54 in home games.

“I want our kids to really enjoy playing in Pauley Pavilion,” Neighbors said. “I have had to introduce (legendary UCLA men’s coach) John Wooden to people – believe it or not – and that was a fun part of it.

“But they are very eager to learn and it’s the first trip to California for a lot of people. And just the historical nature of playing there. It is one of the places. I don’t know how many places are on the list, but that’s one of them.”

The tough early season road game continues something Neighbors and his staff have used as one of the components of its scheduling philosophy.

“It starts out, and goes back to my high school (coaching days), nobody cares how many games you win unless you win your last one,” Neighbors said. “I think that is a line from (the movie) Moneyball.

“It is a philosophy of getting ready for the best team you are going to play. And to be honest with you, you can’t play 31 games against people that have a chance to win the national championship, but you have got to build into that.

“So I always wanted us to be able to play against best teams on our schedule when we play them. To do that, you have got to challenge your team no matter how young or how experienced they are.”

Neighbors has taken Arkansas to the NCAA Tournament in two of his seven seasons at the helm and also led Washington to the Final Four in 2016.

“So that’s the first thought and the second is to give yourself a chance to be talked about on Selection Sunday or whenever we are doing it on these days,” Neighbors said.

“You have to be on the board and to do that there are certain criteria you have to meet. So you seek out opponents that are going to do both of those things – get your team ready and if you do, if you are successful and get your team ready, you are attractive to the NCAA Tournament committee as a post season team.

“And we all want to play in the postseason. So I want us to do that. I don’t care what our record is. The year we went to the Final Four we had 11 losses.”

Arkansas will also play in two regular season tournaments this season with the Daytona (Fla.) Beach Classic on Nov. 29-30 and the Cherokee Invite on Dec. 18-19 in Cherokee, N.C.

The Razorbacks will face Oklahoma State and Bowling Green in Florida and Liberty and either Toledo or Troy at Harrah’s Cherokee Resort.

“The tournaments…offer us some opponents that we wouldn’t be able to get in a home-and-home series or it might be an area that we don’t recruit in, but we would like to play them,” Neighbors said.

Photo by John D. James