Fayetteville, Ark. — Mike Neighbors, the head coach of the Arkansas women’s basketball team, has decided to step down after a tenure that spanned eight seasons. With his roots in Greenwood, Arkansas, Neighbors achieved a commendable 148-114 record with the Razorbacks. Across these years, his leadership translated into six seasons with more victories than defeats. However, the most recent season concluded with a less impressive 10-22 record, wrapping up with a defeat to Georgia in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
Reflecting on his journey, Neighbors recalled the excitement of his appointment during an introductory press conference on April 4, 2017, stating that coaching the Razorbacks fulfilled a lifelong aspiration. In his statement released by the school on Tuesday, Neighbors expressed that he had always anticipated the eventual end of this dream. Until that point, his mission was to represent his family, team, and the state of Arkansas with pride.
During his time leading the Razorbacks, Neighbors guided the team to two NCAA Tournament appearances and two WNIT outings. Notably, the NCAA Tournament runs in 2021 and 2022 marked the first consecutive qualifications for the women’s team since the early 2000s, specifically 2002 and 2003.
Under Neighbors’ guidance, several players achieved significant milestones, including two of the top scorers in the team’s history. Izzy Higginbottom set the record for the highest-scoring season with 790 points, surpassing Chelsea Dungee’s 2019 record of 759 points. The Neighbors era also saw the emergence of two of Arkansas’s eight WNBA Draft picks, namely Dungee and Destiny Slocum.
Throughout his career as a Division I head coach, inclusive of his previous stint at Washington, Neighbors amassed a noteworthy 246-155 career record.
