Arkansas Basketball: The All-80s Team

The 1980s saw the Arkansas basketball program go from a regional to a national program.

The 1980s were mostly all about football in the southern region of America. Arkansas was perennially one of the contenders in the Southwest Conference, led by two legendary coaches.

The basketball program had already transformed into one of the best programs in the country.

Like the football program, two elite coaches led the Hogs on the hardwood, Eddie Sutton and Nolan Richardson. Sutton took the Razorbacks to the NCAA tournament in the decade’s first half to end his eleven-year tenure.

Nolan Richardson took Sutton’s foundation and added to it Richardson missed the tournament in his first two years but followed that with nine consecutive trips to the dance.

Who were the players that helped these legendary coaches achieve success? Let’s check them out.

Eddie Sutton, who built the University …

Eddie Sutton, who built the University of Arkansas basketball program into a national power and won more than 800 career games as a college coach, has died at age 84. Sutton died on Saturday in Tulsa, multiple sources confirmed to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, after being in hospice care. His death comes less than two months after he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on April 3.