Arkansas Razorbacks men's basketball


The Arkansas Razorbacks men's basketball team, colloquially known as the Hogs, represents the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas in NCAA Division I men's basketball competition. The team competes in the Southeastern Conference and is coached by John Calipari. Arkansas plays its home games in Bud Walton Arena on the University of Arkansas campus. The Razorbacks are a top-twenty-five program all-time by winning percentage, top-twenty program by NCAA tournament games played, top-twenty program by NCAA Tournament games won, top-fifteen program by Final Four appearances, and despite playing significantly fewer seasons than most programs in major conferences, top-thirty by all-time wins. Under the coaching leadership of Nolan Richardson, the Hogs won the national championship in 1994, defeating Duke, and appeared in the championship game the following year, finishing as runner-up to UCLA. The Razorbacks have made six NCAA Final Four appearances.

History

Early success under Schmidt (1923–29)

Arkansas had a relatively late start in basketball; it did not field its first team until 1923. Francis Schmidt coached the Razorbacks from the 1923–24 season until the 1928–29 season, while also coaching the football and baseball teams.
Schmidt oversaw the construction of the gymnasium that was home to the Razorbacks from the inaugural season through the 1936–37 season. The project was headed by Schmidt and Jay Fulbright. Schmidt and Fulbright organized a group of businessmen that facilitated the transfer of a former car showroom to the university to serve as the gym for the Razorbacks. The wooden gym, made out of surplus World War I material and officially named Schmidt Gymnasium, became known as "Schmidt's barn," in reference to its makeshift nature and lack of accommodations.
After a difficult first year that resulted in a 17–11 overall record and a 3–9 conference record, Schmidt quickly led the Hogs to success and a dominating run in the Southwest Conference during his tenure. Building off the program's first season, the 1924–25 team finished third in the conference, quickly turning their record around to 9–3 in conference play. This second season laid the groundwork for tremendous success with Schmidt, as the Razorbacks won the conference championship outright in just the third year of the program's existence with a record of 23–2. The 1925–26 season kicked off a string of four straight Southwest Conference championships under Schmidt, and five straight overall. Schmidt also coached the Hogs to the first of three perfect SWC seasons in program history in 1927–28, with a conference record of 12–0 and a 15.25-point average margin of victory in conference play. The 1927–28 season also marked the beginning of a school record 31-game winning streak that ran until the last few games of the next season. Schmidt's last four teams at Arkansas went a combined 75–6.
The last couple years of Schmidt's dominant SWC run were marked by serious star power, with future Razorback basketball coaches Eugene Lambert Sr. and Glen Rose earning First-Team Helms Athletic Foundation All-American recognition during Schmidt's last two seasons, along with Tom Pickel earning First-Team honors from College Humor Magazine in Schmidt's final season as coach. Schmidt's Razorbacks had four of the five All-SWC selections in 1928. During Schmidt's time at Arkansas, the Razorbacks finished first in the SWC four out of six years, and compiled an overall record of 113–22, the highest winning percentage of any Arkansas coach ever. Schmidt left Arkansas to take the football and basketball jobs at TCU, where he was coach until 1934.

Bassett years (1929–33)

In the 1929–30 season, Charles Bassett took over as head coach, leaving the head coaching job at Texas A&M that he held for two years without finding much success, going a paltry 16–18 in his two years as head coach in College Station, including a last-place finish in conference play for the 1927–28 Southwest Conference season. Arkansas's success under Bassett was limited to his first season as coach, when the Hogs won the Southwest Conference Championship with multi-sport star and current College Football Hall of Fame member Wear Schoonover garnering Second-Team All-American recognition from College Humor and earning First-Team All-SWC honors for the third straight season. The Razorbacks did not finish above third place in the Southwest Conference standings for the rest of Bassett's tenure. Aside from the SWC Championship in 1930, the other major bright spot in Bassett's tenure came on January 8, 1931, when the Razorbacks defeated rival Texas, 29–21, the day UT dedicated its new gym. Bassett's last season was the 1932–33 season, when the Razorbacks went 14–7 overall with a 6–6 conference record, the first time since the inaugural 1923–24 season that the Hogs did not finish the year with a winning record in conference play. After four seasons, Bassett's overall record was 62–29.

First Glen Rose era (1933–42)

took over in the 1933–34 season and returned the program to a competitive position within the SWC. Named a Helms Athletic Foundation First-Team All-American as a Hog in 1928, Rose was the first former player to coach the Razorbacks. Rebuilding the program after the decline under Bassett, Rose's first season as coach produced a.500 conference record and a tie for third place in the final SWC standings. The Hogs finished with a winning conference record and no lower than second place in the conference standings for the rest of Rose's first stint with Arkansas, save for one season.
The 1935–36 season ended with the Hogs competing for the right to represent the United States in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin for the first year of basketball being an official medal sport. The Razorbacks swept the other NCAA teams they played in the NCAA Olympic Playoffs, but lost in the first round of the U.S. Olympic Trials to the Universal Pictures Amateur Athletic Union team that went on to win the gold medal.
The following season, 1936–37 featured the last game in Schmidt Gymnasium, or "Schmidt's barn." Construction of the new building, that came to be known as the Men's Gymnasium was under way in 1936, and was completed in the fall semester of 1937, with a capacity of 2,500. The new home for the Razorbacks was dedicated on February 4, 1938, in a 53–26 win over TCU. The Men's Gymnasium served as home for the basketball team until Barnhill Arena was completed in 1954 and the Razorbacks began playing games there in the 1955–56 season.
The Razorbacks won the Southwest Conference outright three times and tied for first two more times during this nine-year run. In the 1940–41 season, Rose led Arkansas to its second perfect conference record ever en route the NCAA Final Four in the Razorbacks' first NCAA Tournament appearance. The 1940–41 season is also notable for the outstanding play of John "Johnny" Adams, a Helms First-Team All-American who is credited as being one of the players responsible for the proliferation of the jump shot in basketball. Adams set the single-game SWC scoring record that season with 36 points against TCU in Fort Worth on February 21, 1941. Rose finished this nine-year run with a record of 154–47. Rose went on to coach the football team for the 1944 and 1945 seasons, without much success. Rose returned to coach the basketball team a decade after he left.

Eugene Lambert (1942–49)

Former Razorback and All-American Eugene Lambert took the coaching job starting in the 1942–43 season. Lambert found moderate success in his first season as head coach, posting a winning record and overseeing a first in program history by coaching the first freshman to play for the Razorback varsity squad, Paul Coleman. After winning a share of the Southwest Conference Championship for the 1943–44 season, Lambert and Arkansas were selected for the NCAA tournament for the second time in program history. However, the team was forced to withdraw after tragedy struck when a car accident injured two of their starters, Ben Jones and Deno Nichols, and killed Eugene Norris, a physical education teacher that accompanied the players on their trip. The next year the Hogs earned another tournament berth and advanced to the Final Four, losing to eventual champions Oklahoma A&M. The Razorbacks did not make the tournament again until the 1948–49 season, when the Hogs shared the SWC crown with Baylor and Rice. The Hogs lost in the first round of the regional, but won the third place game. The 1948–49 season was Lambert's last season coaching the Hogs. During Lambert's seven seasons, Arkansas won a share the Southwest Conference Championship twice, with three second-place finishes and never fell lower than third in the conference. Lambert's final record was 113–60.

Presley Askew (1949–52)

took over for the 1949–50 season and coached through the 1951–52 season. Arkansas tied for first place in the Southwest Conference in Askew's first season, but bottomed out in his third and final season, posting the program's first losing record of 10–14. The Razorbacks did not make the NCAA Tournament during Askew's tenure. Askew's overall record was 35–37, the first basketball coach to finish his career at Arkansas with a losing record, despite having a winning conference record of 19–17. As of 2025, Askew's three-season tenure is the shortest in Razorback basketball history of non-interim head coaches that coached at least one game.

Second Glen Rose era (1952–66)

Glen Rose returned for the 1952–53 season; his second stint with the Hogs lasted until 1966. Rose did not reach the heights of his previous run, with the only real success being in the 1957–58 season, when Arkansas tied for first place in the Southwest Conference with SMU and made the NCAA tournament, losing to an Oklahoma State team whose starting point guard, Eddie Sutton, eventually became head coach of the Razorbacks. Rose's teams in his second spell as head coach posted a winning conference record only five times, to go along with six losing records overall.
For the second time in his career as head coach, Rose oversaw a transition from one home court to another. Eighteen years after the transition from "Schmidt's barn" to the Men's Gymnasium, the Razorbacks began playing their home games in Barnhill Arena in the 1955–56 season. With a capacity of 3,500 at the time of the first game, the transition to Razorback Fieldhouse represented more investment and interest in the program, even if the results of Rose's second run with the Hogs were lackluster. The capacity of Razorback Fieldhouse was 5,000 once it was fully completed and remained at that number until 1977. Razorback Fieldhouse would also be the site of the first televised home game for the Hogs, with Rose coaching the Hogs to a 61–57 victory over Texas Tech on January 3, 1959.
Rose finished his second run with the Hogs with a record of 171–154. Rose's overall record for his time at Arkansas was 325–201. Rose's twenty-three seasons as head coach remain the longest tenure of any Razorback basketball coach, and his fourteen continuous seasons as coach from 1952 to 1966 is second only to Nolan Richardson for longest continuous tenure as Razorback basketball coach.