Best Razorback Games of 2008-09 — Home Rules

This week marks the end of the 2009 ‘fiscal year’ for Razorback sports.  And while most media outlets write their recap stories at the end of December, we actually think it’s more appropriate to do it now before a new set of seasons give us new highs and lows to live through and discuss.

As some have pointed out, 2008-09 was mostly a year to forget for Razorback sports.  Hog fans languished through a rough fall and winter, only to be rewarded as spring turned into summer.

Coming in at #5 on our countdown, however, is one of the few highlight games of that cold winter.

No matter what sport it is…Razorback fans always want to beat Texas.  The football team couldn’t…uh…quite pull it off down in Austin in September.

But as they say, timing is everything.  And during a seven day stretch in late December and early January, you didn’t want to be a visiting team coming in to Bud Walton Arena.  After a huge victory over #4 Oklahoma just a week earlier (more on that later), the Hogs went toe-to-toe against the #7 Longhorns and survived 67-61.

Razorbacks rally to upset #7 Texas (Courtesy of RazorVision)

If you watched the game on TV, it was great.  But if you were there, you know that it was an electric atmosphere that night.  The crowd was raucous and, for a while, it was loud enough that I even thought I was back in Barnhill Arena again.

The signature play of the game — Michael Washington’s driving dunk with 22.5 seconds left — just about brought the house down.

Looking back at the basketball season now, it never got any better than that for the remaining three months.  (Not that seeing Nolan again wasn’t awesome.)

But finishing the season 2-15 after that game doesn’t take away from how exciting it felt that night to think that home court advantage had finally returned to the Arkansas basketball program.  The ‘Bud, we believed, was back.  And it felt pretty good.