This article originally appeared on December 18, 2013 on The Arkansas Traveler website, uatrav.com.
It has been six seasons since Arkansas made the NCAA tournament,
but many fans expect that streak to end this year.
However, before the season, most publications did not have the
Razorbacks in the 68-team field.
Whether or not the Razorbacks make the tournament this season
could come down to how the Southeastern Conference does as a whole.
In NBCSports.com’s and USA Today’s preseason projections, four SEC
teams will make the tournament, while ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has five SEC teams
making the field, with two teams part of the “Last Four In.”
A little over a month into the season, the SEC has not helped its
case. The conference started 0-10 against top 25 teams and are currently 3-14
against ranked opponents.
Despite this poor nonconference performance, Lunardi’s most recent
bracketology on ESPN.com, released Monday, has six SEC teams in the tournament,
including Arkansas.
The Razorbacks are an 11-seed, according to Lunardi’s projections.
Another thing that will factor into Arkansas’ bubble argument is
its performance on the road. Last season, the Razorbacks won only one SEC game
on the road and finished the season with 19 wins.
If Arkansas wins more road games and the SEC gets six teams in the
tournament, the Razorbacks could make the NCAA tournament for the first time
since the 2007-08 season.
This is the
fifth of a series of short articles about the Arkansas basketball team. Each
day leading up to SEC play, I will post an entry about something basketball
related that starts with the next letter of the alphabet. Here are links to the previous
entries, as well as the dates for the next five…
F – Dec. 19
G – Dec. 20
H – Dec. 21
I – Dec. 22
J – Dec. 23
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