Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Basketball season has at least a month remaining, yet questions are being asked about the job security of Arkansas coach John Pelphrey.

It’s not much different than the previous two years. Declining attendance, player suspensions and multiple 30-point losses are again issues for Pelphrey and the program.

Unlike previous seasons, however, athletic director Jeff Long seems to be giving himself some wiggle room regarding Pelphrey.

Long, who has adamantly supported Pelphrey in previous seasons, said Friday on Sports Talk with Bo that he wants to wait to evaluate the program. Pelphrey is 64-53 overall and 21-33 in SEC play at Arkansas. He is 41-40 since going 23-13 in his first season.

“John Pelphrey has a high level of expectation for his program,” Long said. “There’s no question about that. We just have to play the season out, look at evaluate and see where we are at the end of the season.”

Long said that a third of the season remained and once complete, he'd evaluate.

It's not uncommon for ADs to talk in terms of evaluating at the end of a season. However, Long’s comments are different from last year when he spoke of a “long-term commitment” between the school and Pelphrey.

Arkansas travels to Vanderbilt on Saturday. The Razorbacks are just 4-23 on the road under Pelphrey.

Below is a partial transcript from Long’s nearly 10-minute long appearance on Sports Talk. Long talked football, basketball attendance and the state of the basketball program, a topic we focus on here:

Mattingly: I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news for you, Jeff. The good news is there are a lot of people talking about razorback basketball. The bad news is, it’s not a lot of positive conversation. What’s your take on where you are with your basketball program today.

Long: We’ve got a third of the season left. That’s important. Coach Pelphrey is working hard. The student-athletes are working hard. We’ve got a third of this 10-11 season left to go and certainly that’s an important part of the season.

I’m looking forward to us continuing to work and come together as a team and achieve the level of success we all want. We’re looking for the future, looking for our next game and hopefully our team will continue to come together and play as a team. You can see that in this SEC right now, everybody is about at the same level of competition. There’s night when teams can jump out and beat somebody by 20. There’s other nights when somebody they’re supposed to beat by 20, they beat by five. It’s an interesting year in the SEC and the final third of the season is big for a lot of programs out there.