Arkansas finished the second half of the season on a tear, winning 15 of its final 18 games and checking in at No. 17 in the final AP Poll.
It’s the second consecutive season the Razorbacks enter the NCAA Tournament ranked -- something they hadn't done since the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons -- and earned a 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
On top of that team success came individual accolades: Jaylin Williams and JD Notae were both first-team All-SEC selections, Williams earned an All-Defensive Team nod and Notae was named a third-team All-American by the AP.
Despite all of this, Arkansas is a popular upset pick amongst analysts, media members, and other notable people alike, much like last year before the Hogs went on their Elite Eight run.
One of the clips making the rounds was Trent Frazier and Mark Titus of Fox Sports filling out their bracket on TV. It wasn’t enough that one of the hosts, Frazier, picked Vermont over Arkansas, but he explained why:
College students, get a year of HawgBeat coverage for just $11.95! Request details via email from your school account (.edu) to andrewhutchinson413 (at) gmail (dot) com.
“Last night I did about 10,000 simulations of this game, and about 35% of the time Vermont wins this game," Frazier said. "I’m going to strongly agree with the analytics and the numbers and I’m gonna go with the Catamounts because I think Arkansas overlooks this game.
"I think Arkansas is thinking to themselves, ‘We’re good, we should be a 3-seed, we’re okay, we’re playing Vermont, good draw for us,’ and the rest of the country is like, ‘Arkansas - sleeper team to the Final Four, JD Notae - Kemba candidate.’ See all the writing on the wall. I like Vermont.”
Here are some other tweets that show just how much love Vermont is getting as a potential Cinderella...
ESPN basketball analyst went out of his way on a preview segment for the West region to talk up the Vermont Catamounts.
“One of the matchups I think is going to be very interesting is Vermont versus Arkansas,” Bilas said. “Arkansas doesn’t shoot the ball great, although they are very athletic, but they don’t shoot it great. And Vermont does. Vermont runs five-out offense, they take car of the ball, they’re very smart, and they’re all seniors. Vermont’s dominated the American East and I think they’ve got - with Ryan Davis and Ben Shungu - I think they’ve got a great opportunity to win that game.”
