Should the SEC Tournament matter for Arkansas?
For some, the most glorious week of the year has arrived as baseball fans have started the yearly migration to Hoover, Alabama, for the prestigious SEC Baseball Tournament.
For others, this is a week that matters very little and will be forgotten as soon as it ends.
For Arkansas baseball, this is just a week of fun and an opportunity to play guys who need some more in-game action before the NCAA Tournament starts.
"Just go down to Hoover and have a lot of fun," Arkansas first baseman Brady Slavens said Saturday. "It’s a fun experience. Fun atmosphere there. Lot of fans just from different schools and just neutral I guess, and so I would just say just having fun down there is the biggest part of it."
Head coach Dave Van Horn — the SEC Coach of the Year — said himself that the plan is to present a different look beginning Wednesday, which is when Arkansas will play its first SEC Tournament game.
"As far as the games, we’re going to try to win them, but definitely going to mix it up a little bit," Van Horn said Saturday. "We don’t know who we’re going pitch yet. We’ve got two or three hours on the bus to discuss that a little bit."
By clinching a share of the SEC regular season championship and the 2-seed in the SEC Tournament, Van Horn's squad is locked in for double elimination in Hoover. That means the Hogs will play at least two games in a tournament that results in something that isn't the ultimate goal — a national championship.
This all begs the question: Does the SEC Tournament matter for a team like Arkansas?
Some of you may have heard the name "Stewhog," who is known best for posting highlights of every Razorback baseball victory to his YouTube page. Cory Stewart, a.k.a. Stewhog, posted a video Monday titled "Why the SEC Baseball Tournament is Dumb," and we’d like to break it down.
To be fair, Stewart makes a great point about teams on the NCAA Tournament bubble or on the cusp of being a potential Regional host. For those teams, it is worth going into Hoover looking to win a few ballgames.
For a team like Arkansas, which is virtually locked in as a top 8 seed, there is simply no reason to go into the SEC Tournament trying to make it all the way to Sunday's championship game.
Stewart makes his argument best by breaking it down from a perspective of how SEC teams fared in the NCAA Tournament based on the amount of games they played in Hoover.
Focusing on only SEC teams that made it to the NCAA Tournament since 2017, Stewart broke it down for teams that played just two games, three games and then four or more.
As you can see in the graphic above, since 2017, the teams that play less than four games at the SEC Tournament are much more likely to make it to the College World Series.
Of the 14 teams that have gone 0-2 in Hoover and made the NCAA Tournament since 2017, nine have made it to a Super Regional, six have made it to the College World Series and two have won the national championship — Mississippi State in 2021 and Ole Miss in 2022.
This group also features last year's Arkansas squad, which lost to Alabama and Florida in the SEC Tournament and eventually finished as one of the final three teams at the College World Series.
Of the 15 that played three games — whether they went 1-2 or 2-1 (goes to single elimination after you reach semifinals) — eight of them made the College World Series. Two of those squads were the Razorbacks, who went 2-1 in 2018 and eventually lost to Oregon State in the national championship and 1-2 in 2019, when they went 0-2 at the College World Series.
Just three of the 17 teams that have played four or more games in the SEC Tournament and made the NCAA Tournament since 2017 have made it to the College World Series.
Two of those 17 squads were the 2017 Razorbacks, who went 3-2 in Hoover and lost to LSU in SEC Tournament Championship game. The other team was the 2021 Hogs, who went a perfect 4-0 with an SEC Tournament Championship win over Tennessee. Both of those Arkansas teams lost their Super Regional matchups.
Obviously this is all based on trends since 2017 and Stewart himself said himself that correlation does not equal causation.
The best way to look at this situation is to think about playing four or five games in a conference tournament just to turn around and potentially have to play five games in a Regional the next weekend. The risk of playing to win the SEC Tournament Championship just simply doesn't seem worth the reward if it jeopardizes your chances in the NCAA Tournament.
"I want to make it really clear: this is only a trend and it can change completely at any time," Stewart said. "However, if you hear people say things like, 'Hoover doesn't matter,' or 'Just win a game and go home,' at least in recent history, the data backs that up."
Outside of the numbers presented in the graphic, injuries also play a factor and they have even hurt the Hogs in recent history. Brady Slavens was a star for the Razorbacks in 2021 and he suffered a lateral ankle sprain in a matchup with Georgia during the SEC Tournament.
Slavens was able to return for the final two games of the Fayetteville Regional and he played all three games of the Super Regional, but he was clearly not at 100% during those games. The Razorback senior even brought that injury up in a recent press conference when Democrat-Gazette reporter Bob Holt congratulated Slavens on staying healthy all year.
"Yeah, well don’t jinx me on the whole injury thing," Slavens said. "Two years ago, I kind of snapped my ankle in half, just about, so don’t jinx me there."
The last thing this year's Razorback baseball team needs is more injuries. With three key pitchers and the starting second baseman done for the season, priority No. 1 for the Hogs is likely to get back to Fayetteville without any new injuries.
Arkansas' first matchup in the SEC Tournament will be approximately 30 minutes after the first game on Wednesday. The Hogs will played the winner of 7-seed Tennessee and 10-seed Texas A&M on the SEC Network.