SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2025

Mike Neighbors

Izzy Higginbottom

Bon Secours Wellness Arena

Arkansas Razorbacks

Postgame Press Conference

Georgia 79, Arkansas 74

THE MODERATOR: We welcome Arkansas.

We'll begin with an opening statement from Coach, followed by questions.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Well, not the worst draw we could have got, a red hot Georgia team that's been getting better and better throughout the year. It's a staple in a Coach Abe team. As the year goes along, their defense and their player development just continues to get better and better.

Bad draw for us, but I thought we fought coming off of a really emotional game at Texas A&M the other day. We ran out of gas in the fourth quarter. That is 100% my fault, not our players'.

I think we continued to improve throughout the year, as well. I was glad that we played well and represented ourselves here certainly as a team.

Obviously y'all talk to Izzy more than me.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Izzy.

Q. One stat of note, your 38 points today tied for the fifth-most in tournament history, the most since Tan White from Mississippi State had 38 back in 2005. Was there any extra motivation today?

IZZY HIGGINBOTTOM: No, honestly. I just come out and play my game, try to do whatever I can to help my team win every game.

It was the same approach today.

Q. What has it meant to you to be able to play for Arkansas, being a small-town kid from Arkansas?

IZZY HIGGINBOTTOM: Yeah, I think it's just every kid's dream, whatever state you grow up in, you look to go to that university. I think I've gotten to live out my dream this last year, so...

It's meant a lot (tearing up).

Q. Izzy, they tried several different players playing you. Obviously none of 'em could stop you. Did any one of the Georgia players play you any differently, other than tight?

IZZY HIGGINBOTTOM: Yeah, just really tight. They started, I think, face-guarding me. There more in the second half. But, yeah, they did the best they could.

Q. What do you think is next?

IZZY HIGGINBOTTOM: I don't know. I'm just kind of living day to day. I'm a go-with-the-flow type of person. Just one foot in front of the other.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: She's got a lot of options (smiling).

THE MODERATOR: Izzy, thank you.

We'll continue with questions for Coach Neighbors.

Q. Do you think there was any extra motivation, on Izzy's part?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Not with her. Maybe for me, but not her. She is focused on the right stuff. I just needed somebody to explain it to me. I've been asking around the tournament. I haven't gotten a good one yet. I have a number of coaches that told me they voted for her.

I was not anywhere motivated more. I'm saying that in jest. She approaches everything just like she does her entire life. She has got to be a poster kid for what's still right about college athletics. She came to Arkansas not one penny of money. She wanted to be a Razorback. She's going to leave a legacy as that.

The records, I mean, if you would have told me that somebody would have ever broken Dungee's record without playing 37 games, I would have called you a liar. If anybody would have told me you'd break Angel Reese's record for free throws in a season, I would have called you a liar.

I shudder to think what our season could have been like if she didn't buy in early on. She was the first kid out of the portal we talked to. The story has been told ad nauseam. She just said, I want to be a Razorback. There was no talk about NIL opportunities, no talk about anything other than getting a uniform, a scholarship and a chance to finish her career as a Razorback.

We'll let the wounds heal. It hurt because we started to play some good basketball down the stretch. Getting Phoenix more acclimated as the season went along.

Her intentions today were none other than just try to get us to the next round of the tournament.

Q. The conference is so tough from top to bottom. It's often been said, given night anybody can beat anybody. Do you see or is there any potential for the format to be changed? You got to line up against 16 teams. They didn't help us any by bringing Texas and Oklahoma. We know it's about money, too. Sorry, I didn't say that. Do you see any change in the format, maybe divisions?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Of the all-conference team or in general?

Q. In general.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: I don't know any better way to do it. We're as close to a true champion as you get by playing 16 games within those teams.

When it was announced, there was a lot of sports, women's basketball, those teams have been like 49 of the last 50 NCAA tournaments, Texas and Oklahoma. We knew they were bringing in three or 4-all-conference kids this year.

If anything, we talked about it in Destin as coaches about the need to probably add a few people to the all-conference list just because of the sheer number of teams. We got 16 kids rewarded. I think there was a tie that created 17. Other leagues went to 20 and 25, foreseeing that.

We talked about it as a coaching group. I can see something like that changing. There were a lot of people affected. Y'all probably didn't hear my press conference. When I was talking about Izzy being on it, I immediately said I'm not going to talk a lot about it because that means I have to give y'all somebody to take off the list. There was nobody to take off. There were other good players that didn't make it, too.

I hope we get that right. Kids' recognition, it goes a long way to where they're getting Hall's honor, their jersey is retired down the line. We have to talk about that part.

As far as the divisions, there's a lot of people that are smart at the office that will get that figured out. We'll show up and play. It's hard in women's basketball.

It's 16 straight games, eight weeks, that everybody is prepared, everybody's trying to win in women's basketball. I joke with Coach Van Horn all the time about our baseball, because they have the Tuesday and Wednesday games when they play somebody who is not in the league. You get a hitter that maybe had a tough weekend, but goes 3-5 on Tuesday, kind of get their juice back, have a good weekend.

That doesn't happen in basketball. It's one after the other. It really does accumulate, and it's really hard. Like everybody's shirts are saying, Nothing Easy. I don't think any of us want that changed. We all want to know that if you can compete within this league, you can win the whole tournament. If you can survive 16 games and the tournament and get into the NCAA tournament, you can beat anybody that we've played.

I hope we don't make major changes that affects the competitiveness of it. We all sign up for this league. We all come to this league knowing that every single day is going to be hard. We all accept that challenge.

We've got a lot of 'em. We'll get to work. We'll give them the week off like we always do and get back to work getting ready for next year.

Q. Since you mentioned that press conference that you gave the other day, you mentioned you were talking to Hunter about building for next year already. It's a big question, but how has everything that's changing in college sports, NIL, transfer portal, how does that change the conversations you have with your A.D. about building the program? Is it harder?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: The investment is going to be tremendous. He's made it very clear that we're going to be invested in, be able to be really aggressive in the portal. We built our roster that way. We went to the foreign route to build the roster for this year. We can be uber aggressive. He got me through COVID, I learned from that to trust his words. He gave us as much information as he possibly could. We've been on the forefront of the information.

We have seven plans. Not even know what the judge is going to do. We have seven plans. He's provided us with every tool. We have people advising us on things I've never prepared for, like how to disperse your salary, how to use it to build your team. Some people that have done it in the past. We have access to all those people.

We didn't just start meeting last week. It's been an ongoing deal because we knew all the changes. We don't know what they are, but we know they're coming. We got to be in the best position to be ready to pivot and pounce. I'm sure we'll take a little bit out of every one of those piles and put it into a blue print and go to work on it as soon as we know what direction to go hunt in, so...

Does that answer your question?

Q. Yes.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Okay.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Thank, y'all.