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Using ESPN's BPI to project Arkansas' final SEC record

Arkansas has won just two of its first six SEC games this season.
Arkansas has won just two of its first six SEC games this season. (Arkansas Athletics)

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Despite a rough first six games, Arkansas is still in position to finish above .500 in SEC play, according to ESPN's Basketball Power Index.

As seen in the first chart below, the Razorbacks are actually favored in 10 of their final 12 conference games and only slight underdogs in the other two.

However, that does not mean the BPI is predicting Arkansas to go 10-2 in those games. While it is given an 80 percent chance to beat Auburn, it still has a 20 percent chance to lose that game.

(Arkansas also has a 57.1 percent chance to win its lone remaining non-conference game - at Oklahoma State on Jan. 30 - but that has no impact on the conference record.)

Using those percentages, though, it is possible to calculate the likelihood of each record - from losing all 12 to finish 2-16 to winning all of them to finish 14-4 - for the Razorbacks in SEC play.

According to the BPI, they are still three times as likely to finish with a winning conference record (60.7 percent chance to go 10-8 or better) than a losing one (19.0 percent chance to go 8-10 or worse).

Winning eight of the final 12 SEC games to finish 10-8 is Arkansas' most likely scenario, with the BPI giving that a 24.5 percent chance of happening.

The complete rundown of each possible record and its likelihood is in the second chart below.

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Arkansas' Game-by-Game BPI Projections
Game BPI's Chance of Winning

Jan. 20 - vs. Auburn

80.0%

Jan. 23 - at Vanderbilt

74.9%

Jan. 27 - vs. Ole Miss

68.2%

Feb. 2 - vs. Mississippi State

69.5%

Feb. 6 - vs. Texas A&M

85.6%

Feb. 9 - at Kentucky

58.6%

Feb. 13 - at Missouri

49.4%

Feb. 16 - vs. Florida

62.5%

Feb. 20 - at Texas A&M

74.0%

Feb. 24 - vs. Alabama

56.2%

Feb. 27 - vs. LSU

49.8%

March 2 - at South Carolina

60.5%

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Arkansas' Possible Records, per BPI
Record Likelihood

14-4

0.55%

13-5

3.74%

12-6

11.38%

11-7

20.55%

10-8

24.51%

9-9

20.32%

8-10

11.99%

7-11

5.08%

6-12

1.53%

5-13

0.32%

4-14

0.043%

3-15

0.0035%

2-16

0.00012%

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