Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Arkansas' road misery and Saturday's 30-point home court loss to Florida, the Razorbacks' first loss at home in 18 games this season, have left the Hogs looking up at the majority of the Southeastern Conference as teams settle in to the spots that will seed the SEC's Tournament in New Orleans next month. Meanwhile, UALR tries to secure one of the available byes in the Sun Belt Tournament, set for Hot Springs on March 3-6 while preseason Sun Belt West favorite Arkansas State tries to position itself for a good first-round matchup.

Here's a look at what's left for the state's top three basketball programs and where they're likely to line up when their conference tournaments tip off. The fact of the matter for all three, as well as struggling UCA and UAPB, who also play in leagues with automatic bids, is that they will need to win their conference tournaments to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Arkansas

The Razorbacks have lost three of their last four games — they were alternating home victories with road losses until Florida's Gators chomped them to bits 98-68 at Bud Walton Arena on Saturday. The Hogs play their first back-to-back home SEC games of the year when Alabama invades Fayetteville on Thursday night (ESPN2, 6 p.m.). Arkansas will then have one home game, with Ole Miss, left on the following Wednesday, and consecutive Saturday road trips to Auburn and Mississippi State.

If the rest of the schedule plays out the way the season had for the Hogs leading up to the Florida massacre, Arkansas should finish 7-9 in the SEC. However, the way the teams from fourth place and below are knocking each other off, an 8-8 mark could land someone a first-night bye in the tournament. After Saturday's action, four teams are deadlocked in fourth place at 6-6, with Arkansas and Ole Miss at 5-7.

With the SEC no longer split into divisions for basketball, the top four finishers will earn byes into Friday's play at New Orleans.

If the season ended today, Arkansas and Ole Miss would meet in a Thursday first-round game on March 8 as the No. 8- and 9-seeded teams. The booby prize for that winner is getting No. 1 Kentucky on Friday. However, finishing fourth gets you a bye, while finishing fifth gets you a likely matchup with South Carolina, then a quarterfinal game against the fourth-place finisher.

"It just tells you the state of basketball in our league," Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson said Monday of the one game separating six teams in the fight for fourth place. "Obviously, I think the league is better than it was last year and we’re beating up on each other. A lot of teams are holding serve at home. The games are big.

"There's an urgency now, it goes to another level. We're all trying to get some separation."

Ole Miss' Andy Kennedy, who has had much success against Arkansas in the past four years, including in Bud Walton Arena, said of the race for fourth: "It seems like every year, the significance of the last two weeks of the regular season are important for all the teams."

He notes that most of the teams in this six-way battle for fourth will be playing each other these final two weeks.

"It gives you an opportunity to control your own destiny," Kennedy said. "We're just all trying to get to the next game and win one more."

Of the six teams in the bunch, five are former West Division teams — Alabama, LSU and Mississippi State are 6-6. Auburn is just two games back at 4-8, behind the Hogs and Rebels. Tennessee is the "East" interloper at 6-6. Kentucky, Florida and Vanderbilt of the old "East" are a respective 1-2-3 now. In split divisions last year, Alabama had a 12-4 conference record, but the rest of the West was mediocre while Kentucky, Vandy, Florida and UT were dominant.