Arkansas Tourney Hopes

Hawg Lounge
#1

It’s getting to the point now where the tournament is starting to shake out and take shape as to who is almost guaranteed to get in and what needs to be done by everybody else to get in.

Arkansas sits at 11 right now, but other than Ole Miss, Arkansas is playing 5 straight tourney teams, which works in our favor.

Auburn #8 RPI and #2 seeding
Alabama #33 RPI and #8 seeding
Mizzou #23 RPI and #7 seeding
A&M #17 RPI and #7 seeding
Kentucky #20 RPI and #7 seeding

Fact is, a few wins in these games can easily flip the seeding on its head.

But which ones are the most vital?

In my opinion, we have been terrible on the road, but we CAN’T lose to Ole Miss! They are a below 100 RPI team and if we lose this game, by the numbers we shouldn’t be right on the bubble, but we’ll be teetering. The biggest game will be the Alabama game. Alabama has some nice RPI wins where you would think their RPI would be higher, but they are ALL at home. Even Arkansas has a nice top 25 RPI win on a neutral site, but not Alabama. If we can win this game, not only would it be a nice road win, but it would definitely push our perception in the tourney seeding up high beating a team that’s killing people at home.

As for the rest of the games, we have to at least split the A&M and Kentucky game. I believe we can and should beat both but we must at least beat one of them. Auburn is a toss up because it’s a home, but I can also easily see them lighting up the scoreboard as well. Mizzou? I don’t really know to tell you the truth. I still don’t think their that good, but they are definitely on a hot streak at the moment. Plus, they might get Porter Jr. back, which may be a good or bad thing. Too many variables for me to make a prediction there, but a win on the road is always good.

Bottom line is, depending on how the next 6 games shake out, we maybe going into the SEC tourney playing for seeding only or trying to get those extra wins to push us into the NCAA tourney. I don’t think we will need to win the SEC tourney to get in at this point, but it wouldn’t hurt to win it either.

#2

These next 6 games give the hogs a chance to get the 4 seed in the SEC tournament. The only way I could honestly say the hogs could win the SEC tournament would be from the 4seed. On one days rest I believe the hogs can hang with any team in the Tournament. Win the first game and anything can happen.
You can also look at last 4 games of the season are aginst teams that are projected to make the Dance and all of them are seeded higher than the hogs.
The hogs need to go at least 4-2 although 5-1 would be better. That won’t erase the 2 bad losses to LSU and the bad loss to Miss ST but it would help in road win and overall RPI and record.

#3

First things first, this Hog team that thus far has only one true road victory must take care of business at Ole Miss.
If for any reason they don’t then your “Glass all Full” vision of what this team that has been ranked in the AP top 25 all of 1 week this season will be capable of doing down the stretch with five games to play and all against teams that are considered to be better than we are by all of the pundits.
Hope you guys are right and they are able to finish 4-2, 5-1 or 6-0, but I believe that will be very difficult to pull off based on who they play and what our guys have done all season.
Sure, there are ways you can look at this and say if we win all of or the majority of these games we could win our way into a higher national seed than some of these teams.
On the flip side, say we loose all or the majority of these final games then we could be out of the tournament all together. Hope not.
We are flying in for the game this weekend against Texas A&M and are looking forward to Calling the Hogs in person once again.

Go Hogs!

#4

i think the most vital thing to help our seeding/tourney chances is to win 2 of 3 on road. have to beat the Rebels, then steal one from Bama or Mo. maybe if MO brings Porter in, somehow it will screw with their chemistry and we can eek one out or maybe Bama goes on one of their extended dry spells on offense and we steal one there.

i think winning 2 of 3 at home with the schedule we face will put us solidly in tourney, especially if we take 2 of 3 on road. A&M is playing the best of the 3, but i think the most vulnerable with their suspect ball handling. AU and KY can match our athleticism, so home court advantage must be huge the rest of way, if we get hot from 3, meaning guys other than Barford and Macon we could easily drill any of these 3. i hate to hope for things, but i would rather get in comfy meaning a 7 seed, or barely scrape in meaning a 10 or 11 seed. i loathe those 8-9 games which we always seem to be put into. go hogs, wps

#5

The 10 seed is much better than the 8-9 line!