State sports briefs

UA women release non-conference schedule

FAYETTEVILLE — The non-conference women’s basketball schedule for the University of Arkansas will include five games against teams from Power 5 conferences.

Home games against Arizona State and Nebraska, neutral-site games against Pittsburgh and Wisconsin, and a road trip to Iowa State highlight the non-conference schedule, which was released Thursday. Arkansas will play 14 non-conference games beginning with a Nov. 9 home game against Northwestern (La.) State.

The games against Arizona State on Nov. 18 and Nebraska on Dec. 18 are return trips from road games Arkansas played last year when the Razorbacks lost 89-43 at Arizona State and 80-69 at Nebraska. The Sun Devils and Cornhuskers both made the NCAA Tournament in 2018.

The Pittsburgh and Wisconsin games are set for Thanksgiving weekend in Nashville, Tenn. The Iowa State contest on Dec. 2 is part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

The Razorbacks will also play at Texas-Arlington on Nov. 14, Abilene Christian on Dec. 8 and Tulsa on Dec. 20.

Arkansas is coming off a 13-18 season, which was Mike Neighbors’ first as head coach of the program.

“The schedule is about the same as it was last year in terms of strength of schedule, RPI-wise,” Neighbors said. “After recruiting and hiring staff, the next most important thing you do is scheduling. I think we’ve scheduled accordingly to the team we have and the team we expect to have. It will challenge us, I think.”

In SEC play, Arkansas will play home and away games against Missouri, Georgia and Ole Miss; home games against Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt; and away games at Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Tennessee and Texas A&M.

Arkansas is scheduled to play three exhibition games against international teams in Italy later this month. The Razorbacks also will play an exhibition game at home on Nov. 1 against an undetermined opponent.

UALR releases road non-conference games

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock released its women’s non-conference road schedule Thursday.

UALR will travel to Louisiana Tech on Nov. 9 to start the season and will also hit the road for games against LSU, Tulsa, Memphis and Missouri State. The game at LSU on Nov. 25 will be the second of three games against SEC opponents, while the games against Tulsa (Dec. 17), Memphis (Dec. 21) and Missouri State (Dec. 30) will come consecutively to close the non-conference.

The Trojans previously announced non-conference home games against Texas A&M, Mississippi State and Kansas State, among others.

VOLLEYBALL

Arkansas Tech picked to win GAC

Arkansas Tech University received 10 of 12 first-place votes Thursday and 120 points as the Great American Conference’s coaches selected the Golden Suns to win the conference title in their preseason poll.

Harding University received the other two first-place votes and totaled 112 points to finish second. Oklahoma Baptist (101 points), Northwestern Oklahoma State (86 points) and Southern Nazarene (76 points) round out the top five.

Ouachita Baptist University finished in seventh place with 64 points, followed by Henderson State University (55 points). Arkansas-Monticello was selected 10th (29 points) and Southern Arkansas tied for 11th (17 points) with East Central (Okla.).

WRESTLING

OBU joins Great Lakes Valley Conference

The Ouachita Baptist University wrestling team joined the Great Lakes Valley Conference on Thursday, becoming the sixth wrestling team in the conference.

During the season, OBU will compete in the NCAA Super Region Four and will be eligible to win the conference championship. The GLVC’s wrestling season is made up of five meets, the first coming in Arkadelphia against Drury during the week of Jan. 21-27. The other four conference duals will be held during a one-day, five-round competition at the University of Indianapolis on Feb. 2.