Arkansas baseball is, as former pitcher Patrick Wicklander stated, spoiled.
The Diamond Hogs have made the NCAA Tournament every year its been played in the Dave Van Horn era except for one. They’ve made three straight Super Regionals and been to two of the last three College World Series.
That path to Omaha, Nebraska, is a treacherous one made easier depending on the route. Arkansas can get its best possible route if the Regional and Super Regional would be hosted at Baum-Walker Stadium. To make that happen, the Razorbacks need a top-eight national seed. Before the weekend’s series loss to Vanderbilt, D1Baseball.com had Arkansas pegged for one.
It remains to be seen where the projections are now, but as Arkansas was the No. 7 seed in those, it may be borderline. So the question becomes, how to make it happen.
For starters, the Razorbacks need to beat Texas A&M. The series is the regular-season finale in the SEC weekend. It’s in College Station and it’s against a team tied with the Diamond Hogs for second in the league standings. The winner gets the No. 2 seed for the SEC Tournament the following week.
Pollsters still think highly Arkansas. The computers, however, do not. The Diamond Hogs’ RPI is just No. 29. Not exactly indicative of a team likely to make a top-eight seed come NCAA Tournament time. Accordingly, more than Texas A&M is probably required to net the national seed.
A No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament would net a second-round game against either the No. 7 or No. 10 team. But even those spots are up for grabs. LSU, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina are all within two games of each other in spots No. 5-10 with the final weekend to play.
But things start on Friday. A sweep is preferable and then a big run through the SEC Tournament would help, too, especially if the Razorbacks get Tennessee, the No. 1 team in the nation.