BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON
Arkansas took its women’s basketball program to the state capital on Monday – a trip that started about as bad as one could, but one that finished in dominating fashion.
Izzy Higginbottom scored all 24 of her points in the second half and Kiki Smith added 16 as the Razorbacks rallied from a 16-point deficit entering the fourth quarter to shock host Little Rock 71-60 in overtime at the Jack Stephens Center.
The Razorbacks (2-1) scored all 11 points in overtime – with Higginbottom notching the first seven and then dishing out her sixth assist – to put the game away before 1,274 fans.
“Great atmosphere and obviously an unbelievable second half for us,” Arkansas head coach Mike Neighbors said. “A young team grew up tonight.
“I think they just kind of decided (they weren’t going to lose). They decided. We kept talking about it, kept encouraging. It was as encouraging as our bench has been since I have been the coach at Arkansas.
“Our staff, our players were all encouraging each other. ‘Hang in there, we’ve worked on this, we can get it going, we have just got to start now.’ And we kept kind of prolonging that – now, now, now and finally it just clicked.”