Red-hot Higginbottom leads Arkansas into Sunday clash with No. 16 Tennessee

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – Just call her Miss Higginbuckets.

Fresh off a virtuoso 36-point performance in Thursday night’s 59-58 win at Auburn, Arkansas star senior guard Izzy Higginbottom will lead the Razorbacks (8-10, 1-2) into a noon home battle with visiting No. 16 Tennessee (13-2, 1-2).

The game -dubbed Red Glow Sunday – will be televised live from Bud Walton Arena by the SEC Network with Brenda Van Lengen (play-by-play) and Steffie Sorensen (analyst) calling the action.

Arkansas ended a three-game losing streak with the road win at Auburn.

“Being able to finish, I hope it will give some of our kids some confidence that what we are taking about works,” Razorback head coach Mike Neighbors said. “I think you have to win a game like this before everybody really believes and buys in.

‘So I hope it carries over to games like the one we have coming up on the schedule. We got Tennessee…and they will be coming off two straight losses and maybe without their head coach (Kim Caldwell) if she has her baby. I don’t know how that’s going.”

Arkansas fell down 10-0 and 21-8 before Higginbottom – the SEC’s leading scorer at 24.4 per game scored 11 straight to get her team close by halftime and the Razorbacks eventually took a lead in the third quarter.

“It was just a battle hanging in there, another slow start, didn’t give up, stayed with it and got some things figured out,” Neighbors said. “But from about that middle of the second quarter on, we played really well.

“…I think those non-conference games, as bad those sucked to lose, it helped us win an SEC road game that we really needed.”

Higginbottom hit the second of two free throws with 3 seconds left and Christiana Sanchez Cerqueira blocked an Auburn shot at the buzzer to close the game out.

The Razorbacks, who have not lost at Auburn since 2016, gave Neighbors a water bath from his team after the game and before his press conference.

“It’s hard to win on the road here, especially with two teams that have both lost their first two,” Neighbors said. “Super, super proud of our kids and they are excited as all get out there for their first SEC win for a number of those kids. That’s why I am so wet.

“Anybody that wants to say you shouldn’t take a water bath after your first (SEC) win, I would tell them to come walk a few days in our shoes and you’ll see whether it is worth it or not.”

“It’s great to see our kids so excited, every single one of them are pumped. Every single one of them contributed on this road trip and in this preparation. So we are going to celebrate it and do it a true service.”

Tennessee comes into the game off a heartbreaking back-to-back home losses to Oklahoma (87-86) loss and LSU (89-87), which blasted Arkansas 98-64 in both teams’ league opener.

The Vols have five players averaging in double figures scoring with Taylasia Cooper (18.2) leading the way while shooting 51 percent overall from the field.

She is aided by guard Jewel Spear, who is averaging 24.3 points per outing in her three SEC contests and has hit 17 of her 26 3-pointers in her last two games.

Tennessee leads the NCAA in scoring (96.6), three pointers per game (12.0), three point attempts per game (36.1) and offensive rebounds per game (20.5).  

It is second in turnovers forced per game (26.73), third in turnover margin (11.93), fourth in steals per game (14.3), and sixth in bench points per game (34.1).

It was the second time Higginbottom has topped 30 this season with a season-high 38 coming in a 75-64 home win over Boston College on Dec. 5.

The Arkansas State transfer is fourth nationally this season in scoring and second nationally with her 140 free throws attempted.

“From the time time (former Razorback) Mak(ayla Daniels) walked off the court at Arkansas State and said ‘Coach, I have guarded some of the best players inn the league and I could not guard her.’ “t does not surprise me. It baffles me,” Neighbors said.

“Because it’s is like I was telling Phil (Elson) on the radio, I promise you.. if you lined up all the people they had in attendance and had somebody take odds which kid, who’s going to get 36 tonight, I don’t think she’s in your top 500 picks.

Just the way she goes about doing it. They know it’s coming…Everybody knows it is coming and you still have a hard time guarding it.”

Higginbottom’s 36 points was the most ever by a Razorback player in an SEC road game, a point loss than Bettye Fiscus’s 37 in Alaska in 1982 and 8 off Shelly Wallace’s school-record of 44 in 1988.

Photo courtesy of Razorbacks Communications/Noah Southard