Did Early 'Bracketology' Ratings This Week Include Calipari's Short Roster for Razorbacks?

There's no waiting for basketball season to arrive because apparently it never leaves these days, but Hogs getting noticed

New Arkansas Razorbacks coach John Calipari at press conference after introduction Wednesday afternoon at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark. / Craven Whitlow-allHOGS Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Considering John Calipari only has six players from the zero he inherited taking over the Arkansas Razorbacks' basketball program, it was a little more than surprising to see ESPN's Joe Lunardi come out with his first "bracketology" thing on Friday. I only looked originally as a mild curiosity.

No surprise with the top seeds starting where we ended things last month with UConn, Houston, Duke and Kansas at the top of the regions. It also wasn't surprising to see the SEC having 10 teams selected for the tournament.

However, seeing Missouri as one of the first four out, considering how bad they were last year. The Tigers, bless their hearts, were almost as bad as the Hogs. Seeing Arkajnsas in the tournament as a No. 10 seed right now was a little bit of a shocker. Of course it's just May and nobody really knows who they are going to have on the roster, but the Razorbacks have just six.

It's kind of hard to project much of anything with six players on the roster and nobody coming back, at least for now. It's pro probably something Hogs' fans are going to have to become accustomed to with Calipari the coach now. They are going to be listed in these early projections, regardless of the roster because people are going to have that much respect for what he's done in the past. It's expectations they've been complaining about not having for years.

Now they are back on the national stage. Longtime fans have been wanting to get back there since Eddie Sutton first put them there in the late 1970's and that was nearly 50 years ago now. It's been a dry spell since the last two years of greatness with a national title and a runner-up finish in consecutive seasons. They got close with a couple of Elite Eight appearances, but last year was accepted a lot more gracefully than I expected.

While football has always been, historically, a program that won the biggest when the least was expected from it, basketball has been a little different. They have had ridiculously high expectations from fans for nearly half of a century and the Hogs delivered on that for a lot of years. The last 25 years have been, well, brutal. There have been some glimmers of hope, but even hiring Mike Anderson didn't bring back the high hopes until Eric Musselman's two years of getting close to the Final Four.

Now the fans pretty much want to be in that last weekend,. The financial commitment has obviously been made or the odds are Calipari wouldn't be here. None of those guys would have put up that kind of money to bring in even a really good coach from a mid-major. His reputation nationally has put the Razorbacks back into the conversations about basketball.

Welcome to the new world. For the last several years, there hasn't been a lot of basketball talk after March until about December. If they were winning at a level to get folks excited, that continued through March, then everybody became a baseball fan with a month spent having some interest in spring football.

Now it looks like basketball is going to be big again. Don't worry, the Razorbacks are going to be in a lot of those conversations. What Calipari is doing usually makes national news. Everyone just hopes they are talking about bringing back wins as much as living in the past soon.

HOGS FEED:

• There is a way the Razorbacks can inject themselves in the playoff conversations in November, but it may to be playing in it

• Lack of getting key hits early dig hole too deep for Razorbacks to climb out of in dropping second straight, series to Kentucky

• Taking stock of Razorback recruiting rankings

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