Know Thy Enemy – Arkansas at Georgia (WBB)
By bzell
By Brent Zell
Happy New Year, everyone. The No. 17 Georgia women’s basketball team hopes to get the year and the SEC conference season off to a good start against Arkansas at 2 p.m. EST today in Athens. What does Arkansas bring to the table? Here are the answers.
ARKANSAS
Record: 11-1
Coming In: Has won 11 straight, most recently downing Mississippi Valley State 59-40 Dec. 28 in Fayetteville, Ark.
Mascot: The Razorback. Sure, the animal is tough, but I’d rather take the submarine of the same name. The USS Razorback, commissioned in April 1944, has quite a history. It was part of the largest single-day deployment of submarines in the country’s history, went on five combat patrols during World War II
and was part of surveillance patrols during the Cold War. It was used for training and rescues during the 1960s, then was decommissioned and transferred to the Turkish navy in 1970. The sub is now part of
the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum Foundation, where presumably it stands at the ready to be used in the Red River for Arkansas’ eventual invasion of Louisiana.
Well, This Is Interesting: Despite its gaudy record, Arkansas isn’t ranked in either the AP or USA Today top-25 poll as of Dec. 26. It appears in the most recent AP poll’s receiving votes section.
But Here’s The Thing: The likely reason the Lady Razorbacks aren’t rated is because their strength of schedule is ranked 207th in the country and has played only two teams with RPI ranked better than 104th. In comparison, Georgia’s schedule is ranked 70th in the country and the Lady Dogs have a RPI rank of 32.
Watch This Player: Arkansas senior guard C’eira Ricketts is the team’s second-leading scorer (10.3 points per game, just behind Sarah Watkins’ 11.2 per), but also puts the snap in the Lady Backs’ defense. Ricketts averages a team-high 3.08 steals per contest, which is a good chunk of Arkansas’ average of 9.75 steals.
Coverage: Georgia Bulldogs Radio Network (Affiliate List); GeorgiaDogs.com (Live Chat)