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Column: The streak is dead

For the first time in 33 years, Arkansas failed to make a 3-pointer Tuesday night.
For the first time in 33 years, Arkansas failed to make a 3-pointer Tuesday night. (Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports)

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FAYETTEVILLE — The streak is dead.

After making at least one in its last 1,092 games, Arkansas failed to make a 3-pointer Tuesday night. It went 0 of 11 from beyond the arc in a 75-59 win over South Carolina at Bud Walton Arena.

Those three sentences were hard to type. As the final minutes of the game ticked away and it became more and more clear the Razorbacks wouldn’t make a 3, I realized I was way more emotionally invested in “the streak” - as it came to be known - that I anticipated.

The No. 1 rule for sportswriters is not to cheer for the team you cover and I have always followed that, but first and foremost, I am a sports fan who has always obsessed over the numbers and statistics that span generations.

When the streak started way back in 1989 - the last time Arkansas didn’t make a 3-pointer was Jan. 7, 1989, against Texas - my parents had known each other just 10 months. Nolan Richardson was in only his fourth season and hadn’t yet taken Arkansas past the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

So much has changed even since I started my game-by-game tweet updates. When Dusty Hannahs made Arkansas’ first - and only - 3-pointer with 4 minutes left in a blowout loss at Minnesota on Nov. 22, 2016, I was a recent college graduate and newlywed.

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For whatever reason - I’m not exactly sure why, to be honest - I decided to keep doing it and didn’t stop for more than five years. Now, 1,518 days later, I’m the father of a beautiful 2-year-old girl and living my dream as a sportswriter.

Sure, it was a meaningless stat in the grand scheme of things, but you - the readers, the Twitter followers, the subscribers - latched onto it. Even in losses, big and small, fans could at least shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Well, at least the streak is still alive.’

When my friend John Nabors, a radio show host for 103.7 The Buzz, started doing similar tweets each game, some of y’all reached out and asked if I was annoyed by him trying to “steal my thunder.” I always got a laugh out of that. Stats are meant to be shared and enjoyed by everyone.

Believe it or not, I also looked forward to the irrationally angry responses I’d inevitably receive when the first 3-pointer came with Arkansas trailing by double-digits or after disappointing losses — “Who gives a #$%& about the streak?!” “This is such a stupid thing to tweet!” “Your a idiot!”

Such vitriol never made sense to me. Sports are meant to be fun. For some people, that could be a streak that lasted more than three decades. If you aren’t some people, why let it bother you so much? Don’t be so serious, bro.

Of course, we all knew this day would come. We saw Arkansas climb to No. 3 on the active streaks list - behind UNLV and Duke - thanks to 0-fer performances by Kentucky and Vanderbilt the last few seasons and this year’s team has been particularly cold from beyond the arc.

The Razorbacks were 0 of 8 in the first half against LSU on Saturday and many speculated it was only a matter of time before a team shooting just 29.7 percent from 3-point range (319th nationally) coming into Tuesday’s game went an entire 40 minutes without making a single one.

With the game firmly in hand against the Gamecocks, the student section and other fans inside Bud Walton Arena started yelling for Arkansas’ players to chunk up 3s in the last couple of minuets, but none of them did. The last miss was by JD Notae with 4:47 remaining.

They could have taken more, but as head coach Eric Musselman said in the postgame press conference, the Razorbacks were driving to the rim at will and frequently getting to the free throw line and they were just trying to win their third straight game to get back to .500 in SEC play.

None of Arkansas’ players were alive when the streak started and likely don’t remember the pre-Steph Curry era of basketball, plus Musselman respects the game too much to have his team chase records.

At the same time, it was still sad to see such a thing come to an end, especially for someone whose career has at least partially been tied to what started out as a useless piece of trivia and evolved into a phenomenon.

I read every single one of the hundreds of messages, memes and - yes, of course - angry tweets I received in the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s game and they made me laugh. I promise I’m not distraught, but I’d be lying if I said I felt nothing.

As the saying goes, though, don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened…and because the next streak can start Saturday.

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