You’d need to travel back in time to March of 1987, Nolan Richardson’s tumultuous second year running the Arkansas basketball program, to see as bad of a half of basketball as went down on Saturday in Columbia, S.C.
Coincidentally, Arkansas was then just a few short days removed from an emotional overtime comeback win, from 21 points down in the second half, in escaping total embarrassment by losing in Fayetteville to Arkansas State.
The National Invitation Tournament, still something worth winning back in those days even if you didn’t make the then-64-team NCAA tourney field, then sent Arkansas to Lincoln, Nebraska, to face the equally mediocre Cornhuskers.