The SEC regular season concluded on Saturday and Arkansas finished with its worst record in over a decade, as the Razorbacks sit with a 15-16 (6-12 SEC) overall record that places them tied for 11th in the conference with Georgia.
Georgia earned the 11-seed in the SEC Tournament, though, because it holds the tiebreaker over the Hogs. With that, Arkansas has the No. 12 seed and will play during Wednesday Night Sadness.
Right off the bat, Arkansas gets a rematch with Vanderbilt, which just knocked off Florida on senior night and recently defeated the Razorbacks in Bud Walton Arena. Head coach Eric Musselman will use that film to help adjust ahead of Wednesday's matchup.
"I think it’s extremely important as you play a team multiple times, that you look and review things that you did well and things that you didn’t do well," Musselman said on Monday. "Certainly Jerry Stackhouse, he’s — they run great stuff, they’ll change up their defenses. They have three players that are playing at a high level and Coach Stackhouse does a great job of getting (Ezra) Manjon and (Tyrin) Lawrence and (Ven-Allen) Lubin inside, he gets those three guys the basketball and then they have other guys that are surrounding those guys that can make threes.
"But certainly, we’ve gone back and today will be another day where we’ll show video of the last game. We’ll also show video and discuss some of the things that Vanderbilt did against Florida in their last win. So yeah, you look at our past game. That carries a lot of weight in adjustments, and then certainly their most recent games become part of evaluations, adjustments and game planning."
The Commodores have won three-straight against Arkansas - two of those in Fayetteville - but the Razorbacks get a shot to end that streak and extend their postseason hopes at 6 p.m. CT on Wednesday night on the SEC Network.
Arkansas' only hope of an NCAA Tournament berth is winning five games in five days in Nashville, Tennessee — a feat never accomplished since the SEC's expansion to 14 teams in 2012. Can Arkansas do it, and what does the path look like? HawgBeat takes a look:
Tournament Bracket:
Pre-Expansion SEC Tournament Results:
Two SEC divisions existed prior to expansion, so by adjusting to make the five and six seeds from each side of the bracket the present-day double-digit seeds, we can see the SEC Tournament results from 1999-2012 above.
Only one team won four games in the SEC Tournament to earn the automatic bid — the Georgia Bulldogs — who defeated the Razorbacks in the finals.
The path for the bottom four teams got much more difficult after expansion, as there were fourteen teams and more games to win in order to make it to Championship Sunday. The numbers and data in the decade-plus since expansion are even more disheartening for Razorback fans, so Arkansas' depth will play a key factor in how far it advances.
"I will say that for any teams that advance, the further you advance, depth can become more of a factor," Musselman said.. "And certainly, guys like Layden Blocker, Layden has practiced really hard. I know that Layden Blocker’s staying ready to play, and that’s what you need to do.
"If you’re not getting the reps in a game, it’s important to stay mentally focused and get the reps and work on your cardiovascular, and I do think we have some guys, first one in the building, those guys that are doing that type of stuff. They’re staying ready to play, and like I said, any team that’s fortunate enough to advance, rotations can alter with each extra game that you have to play."
Post-Expansion SEC Tournament Results:
As the No. 12 seed, Arkansas has to go on a similar path as some of the teams mentioned above. If any Arkansas fans are looking for good news, it's not completely unheard of to win at least a couple games in the SEC Tournament from the Hogs' position.
Winning two games will avoid a below .500 season for head coach Eric Musselman and the Razorbacks, but that's a tall ask.
If the Razorbacks manage to defeat Vanderbilt on a neutral floor, then they have to take on South Carolina and the SEC Coach of the Year in Lamont Paris. The Gamecocks defeated Arkansas in Fayetteville 77-64 earlier this season, but this is not the same Razorbacks team as then.
A win against South Carolina will have the Hogs facing Auburn, who handed Arkansas its worst loss in Bud Walton Arena history in a 83-51 throttling. The Tigers are playing as well as any team in the country right now, and their style of play is suited for tournament formats.
The path is less clear from there, but it probably involves a rematch with Tennessee in the semifinals and most likely one of Alabama, Kentucky or Florida in the championship game.
Arkansas' combined record against Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky and Florida this season is 0-8. That could provide some motivation for revenge, or it could build a mental wall that the team struggles to get over. Whatever the case may be, the path won't be easy.
Does it matter that this Arkansas team is playing better down the stretch or that Musselman has finally shrunk his rotation? It could. The offensive firepower that was missing during the first half of the season is now present. The defense has improved quite a bit in certain areas but it still gives up easy buckets in transition and at the basket.
"I think the team has played confident," Musselman said. "I think our last three road games on weekends were Mississippi State, Kentucky and Alabama. Those are three hard places to play. All you have to do is look at their home record. We didn’t win them, but we gave ourselves, or we had an opportunity to win all three of those games.
"So I think that it’s a confident, or a more confident team than we were earlier. And I do think this particular group knows where shots are coming from and who they’re coming from."
Realistically speaking, Arkansas should beat Vanderbilt on a neutral floor and at least make it competitive against South Carolina, but beyond that, the Razorbacks will have to play their best basketball for five days straight in order to make the NCAA Tournament.
