Before Arkansas moved to the SEC, it had a very happy home in the Southwest Conference, whose basketball tournament became a Razorback victory party many times.
Arkansas has won the SEC Basketball Tournament only once since joining the Southeastern Conference in the 1991-1992 college sports cycle. The Razorbacks won the tournament in 2000, a year when the SEC regular-season championship was split in several directions and there was no dominant team in the league. The great Nolan Richardson teams of the 1990s didn't win the SEC Tournament because Rick Pitino and then Tubby Smith and Kentucky stood in the way. Arkansas basketball has struggled for most of the 21st century, with John Calipari trying to add to his own SEC Tournament championship collection by doing at UA what he previously achieved at Kentucky.
Yet, for all the struggles Arkansas basketball has endured at the SEC Tournament, the Hogs were heavenly at the old Southwest Conference Tournament. Reunion Arena in Dallas became the site of four different SWC Tournament championships for Arkansas basketball. The Summit in Houston was the location for two other Razorback triumphs at the SWC Tournament. All told, Arkansas won six different Southwest Conference Tournaments in men's basketball, adding to the luster of the program and its rich basketball legacy.
The fun began for Arkansas at the SWC Tournament in Houston in 1977. Ron Brewer was the star who carried the Hogs to the victory stand. Arkansas beat the home team, Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars, 84-70 in the tournament final.
Two years later, in 1979, Houston was once again the place for the Razorbacks to celebrate. Arkansas and star Sidney Moncrief won a 39-38 grinder against the Texas Longhorns to add to their SWC trophy collection.
In 1982, Houston made the Final Four in New Orleans, but as a No. 6 seed. The Cougars were on the verge of becoming a dominant regular-season team -- the kind of team they became in 1983 and 1984 -- but they weren't an imposing regular-season team in 1982. Arkansas met UH in the SWC Tournament final in Dallas and hammered the Cougars 84-69. Alvin Robertson was the Hogs' -- and the tournament's -- most outstanding player.
In the mid-1980s, Arkansas struggled, but Nolan Richardson came aboard and -- after several years of getting settled in and establishing a foundation for the program -- began to take off at the end of the 1980s. Arkansas won three straight SWC Tournament championships from 1989 through 1991. In 1989, UA won the final 100-76 over Texas with Lenzie Howell being the tournament's most outstanding player. In 1990, the Hogs handled Houston 96-84 in the final with Todd Day earning tournament MOP. In 1991, Arkansas blew out Texas again, 120-89, with Oliver Miller being MOP.
The SEC Tournament titles Arkansas basketball never did win instead were collected by the Hogs in their former conference, the SWC. Six tournament titles in a 15-year span made Arkansas the king of the SWC. UA won more SWC Tournaments than Houston and Texas Tech (5 each).