Thursday’s game between Arkansas and Connecticut isn’t just a Sweet 16 game. It’s a game between two of the highest-profile programs in the country for the last 30 years.
Certainly, UConn’s star has been brighter for a bulk of that time. But Arkansas was coming off Final Fours of its own in the late 90s, then again in the mid 90s. After a dry spell, Mike Anderson turned the Hogs into regular NCAA Tournament-border teams and Eric Musselman has catapaulted Arkansas to three straight Sweet 16s.
Weirdly enough, despite the prestige, the two teams have met only four times in the past and never in the NCAA Tournament. In fact, each previous meeting was in a tournament, just not that one.
Let’s look at back the short history between two of the country’s best.1