Does SEC Tournament exit predict postseason success for Arkansas?
The No. 5 Arkansas Razorbacks (43-14) exited the SEC Tournament on Thursday with an 0-2 record due to poor defense and struggles at the plate, but history may point to a possible reemergence in the NCAA Tournament based on the latest trends by league foes.
Since the Covid-19 shortened 2020 season, three SEC teams have won the national championship. Those three squads — LSU, Ole Miss and Mississippi State — combined for a 1-5 record at the SEC Tournament.
LSU’s 2023 team was the only program of those three to actually score more runs than its opponents in Hoover, Alabama, as Ole Miss and Mississippi State were outscored 3-1 and 25-3, respectively.
The three teams that won those respective SEC Tournaments — Arkansas (2021), Tennessee (2022) and Vanderbilt (2023) — all failed to make it past the Super Regional round of the NCAA Tournament to Omaha. Arkansas and Tennessee fell in the Supers despite being No. 1 overall seeds and the Commodores were upset by Xavier in the Regional round.
So, what does this mean for the current version of the Diamond Hogs? Well, for starters, a quick bow-out from the league tournament doesn't mean Arkansas can't get back on track once its in the healthy confines of Baum-Walker Stadium. After all, Dave Van Horn's club sports a dominant 33-3 home record this season.
Arkansas' lack of clean baseball across its two-day stay is certainly a concern, but it falls right in-line with what happened to the Bulldogs prior to their magial run. Mississippi State surrendered 33 hits across two games with two errors in 2021 and it seemed like all hope was lost, but everything changed once the NCAA Tournament began.
Here's a look at how those LSU, Ole Miss and Mississippi State championship-winning teams' SEC-only stats and final season stats compare to Arkansas' at this current juncture:
| Team (Year) | SEC ERA (Final ERA) | SEC Batting Average (Final BA) | SEC Fielding Percentage (Final FLD%) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Arkansas (2024) |
4.24 |
.244 |
.980 |
|
LSU (2023) |
5.90 (4.47) |
.284 (.308) |
.972 (.975) |
|
Ole Miss (2022) |
5.56 (4.21) |
.262 (.278) |
.977 (.972) |
|
Mississippi State (2021) |
4.75 (4.04) |
.260 (.278) |
.971 (.975) |
Of the four teams, the Razorbacks have the best team ERA and fielding percentage but the worst batting average when accounting for SEC regular season games and the SEC Tournament.
"We've got to get better," Van Horn said Thursday. "We got to get better. That's what I just told 'em, we got to get more production up and down the lineup. It's spotty right now. I think guys are trying too hard, trying to do too much instead of just take what they give you sometimes.
"What I'm talking about is maybe a couple guys going out of the zone, put themselves in a bad count. We got to flip that, take the pitch, work for the next one. Yeah, we're going to have to swing the bats a lot better when we get to the regional."
On average, each team made a jump of 0.19 percentage points in batting average during the postseason. That would slot Arkansas at .263 if it makes a similar leap. The last team to hit in that range and still win the national championship was Florida in 2017, which finished with a .259 batting average.
Will that be good enough for Arkansas? Assuming the pitching staff and defense stay the same or improve, then the Hogs should have a solid chance at making another College World Series appearance.
Up next, Arkansas will return home to rest up before hearing their NCAA Tournament fate on the live selection show on Monday. It will broadcast at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN2.