Born into meager beginnings, the University of Arkansas didn’t even have a gym to house its first basketball team. It was 1924 — nearly 10 years after Arkansas helped establish the Southwest Conference — when the Razorbacks officially fielded their first basketball team. Practically an afterthought among the athletics department, Arkansas basketball eventually became one of the nation’s top programs, transfixing a state that had shined only in football on the NCAA stage.