HawgBeat's Best Arkansas Basketball Player of the SEC Era Bracket

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March Madness is one of many things sports fans have lost in the past week because of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Usually, this weekend is the best stretch of college basketball - of any sport, arguably - as brackets are busted by buzzer beaters, upsets and amazing performances at the NCAA Tournament.

To help fill that void and also satisfy the craving for college basketball after it was ripped away from us, HawgBeat decided to create a bracket of its own to determine Arkansas’ best basketball player since it joined the SEC in 1991-92.

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There are a few obvious choices for high seeds, like Todd Day, Lee Mayberry, Corliss Williamson and Bobby Portis. However, picking and then seeding 64 players over a 29-year period based solely on a personal opinion would be quite the daunting task.

That’s why HawgBeat opted not to go that route. Instead, we let statistics take full control of the seeding - almost as if the selection committee went strictly off the NET rankings.

Using every player’s career statistics on HogStats.com, HawgBeat calculated their average “Game Score.” To do so, we used John Hollinger’s formula for a single-game score and then divided it by their career games played. (We included only those who played at least 500 minutes.)

As a result, here were our top four - each earning a No. 1 seed…

1. Todd Day - 18.8

2. Corliss Williamson - 15.7

3. Lee Mayberry - 14.7

4. Bobby Portis - 13.5

It’s also worth noting that only statistics compiled after Arkansas joined the SEC were considered. That means Day and Mayberry’s scores were based solely on their senior seasons, as their first three years were spent in the SWC.

Even if the first three years of their careers were included in the calculations, they’d still be No. 1 seeds. The only difference would be that Williamson and Portis would occupy the top two spots, followed by Day and Mayberry.

This is an imperfect system, as Hollinger’s formula doesn’t factor in things that don’t show up in the box score, but that’s why we’re leaving the voting up to the fans to determine the true No. 1.

Here is how the seeding turned out after crunching the numbers:

Voting for the 32 first-round matchups is now open. Check back in the coming days to see the results and vote for the next round.

**Click here to vote**

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Keeping with the March Madness theme, here are the first four players who just missed the cut…

65. Desi Sills

66. Steven Hill

67. Hunter Mickelson

68. Devonta Abron