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From @masonchoate

A year removed from Hagen Smith's historic season on the mound for Arkansas, the Razorbacks will have a new left-handed pitcher wearing the No. 33 jersey this season.

Following Smith's SEC Pitcher of the Year campaign in the spring of 2024, the dominant lefty pitcher was selected fifth overall by the Chicago White Sox in the Major League Baseball Draft.

It's unfair to ask anyone to replace Smith's 2.04 ERA and 161 strikeouts, but the Hogs did about as good as they could by landing transfer portal gem Zach Root from East Carolina. Rated as D1Baseball's No. 2 impact transfer pitcher, Root started 12 games as a sophomore last season last season and logged a 3.56 ERA with 76 strikeouts and 21 walks across 68.1 innings.

It's worth noting that Root would've pitched more if he didn't have an arm injury that bothered him in the 2023 season. He was available all of the 2024 fall for the Diamond Hogs, and he did get hit around a little bit.

Across five total appearances, four of which were starts, Root had an 11.37 ERA after giving up eight earned runs on 14 hits in 6.1 innings pitched in the fall, according to stats compiled by local media. He walked one and struck out four of the 34 total batters he faced.

"I feel like he’s fine," Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said Oct. 10. "His stuff’s good. A lot of times these guys come in there that have transferred in and they’re a little nervous. It’s all new for them. Even though they have experience, they need to go through that a little bit. I think you can credit our offense. I think our offense is pretty good. They took advantage of some mistakes."




Root logged a strong finish to the fall after Van Horn's previous quote, as Root struck out four and walked none across two innings of action in the Oct. 11 exhibition against Oklahoma State. Root came on in relief of right-hander Gabe Gaeckle, who tossed one inning to start the game, and then the lefty from East Carolina allowed just one unearned run on one hit in his action.

While he has to prove it this spring, the expectation is for Root to play a big role as a starter for pitching coach Matt Hobbs' staff. Van Horn credited Hobbs' reputation as a big reason why the Hogs were able to land Root, plus highly-touted Ohio State transfer left-hander Landon Beidelschies.

"They want to pitch for Coach Hobbs," Van Horn said Sept. 3. "They like what they’ve seen from the development of our high school pitchers, or maybe even a guy like (Hagen) Smith, who turned down maybe $1 million coming out of high school and got $8 million. Appreciate those guys, but they had some options. Many, many, many options.

"They could have gone to our league. We would have had to try to beat them, and you know, they came in here because they wanted to be a part of the Arkansas program. Like I said, be with Coach Hobbs, and I think they just wanted to be on a team with a great pitching staff, and that’s what we foresee."

Hagen Smith sported the No. 33 jersey as a left-handed pitcher last season, as did left-hander Nick Schmidt, who posted 135 strikeouts and a 2.98 ERA in a historic 2006 season for Van Horn's team. Van Horn was asked by HawgBeat in September if there was any specific reason why Root was given the No. 33 jersey.

“For the most part, I have had, a lot of left hander pitchers that have worn that," Van Horn said. "Nick Schmidt. Did Drew Smyly wear that number? (He did) Might have been another one in there. Might have ben a couple of more.

“It is a left-handed pitcher's number in my eyes and he’s left-handed. Landon (Beidelschies) had already requested No. 35 and he got it. Then I talked to Zach about it and he kind of knew there had been some guys wearing that that were pretty good. Didn’t want to throw that on him if he didn’t want to handle it, but he was good with it.”

Root appeared in 20 games and started 13 as a freshman in 2023, when he logged a 5.33 ERA with 54 strikeouts and 27 walks in 53.2 innings. To expect him to perform on the same level as Smith and Schmidt this spring would be unfair, but it's safe to say that there's plenty of hype for Root to live up to if this team wants to go far in 2025.

The Razorbacks will open their season Friday, Feb. 14, against Washington State at Baum-Walker Stadium in Fayetteville.

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The No. 23 Arkansas Razorbacks (11-3, 0-1 SEC) were served a reality check Saturday with a 76-52 blowout loss on the road to the No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers (14-0, 1-0 SEC).

Arkansas' rebounding — or lack thereof — told the story of the game. The Hogs were out-rebounded by Tennessee, 51-29, and Arkansas gave up 24 offensive boards which led to 16 second-chance points for the Vols.

Guard D.J. Wagner scored a team-high 17 points and freshman guard Boogie Fland added 12 of his own, but a seven-minute scoring drought in the first half allowed the Vols to push out to a lead they never relinquished.

Tennessee forward Chaz Lanier was a one-man wrecking crew on the offensive side of the ball, as he scored 29 points and hit five threes to keep any comeback attempt the Hogs had at bay.

HawgBeat grades the team's overall performance from Saturday's SEC opening loss...

Offense: D​

For the first five minutes of the game, it looked like Arkansas was going to hang with the top team in the land. Wagner scored the Hogs' first seven points and Arkansas actually led, 12-9, with a little more than 14 minutes remaining in the first half.

That's where it stopped, though. Arkansas looked disorganized, disrupted and dysfunctional for the rest of the first half and most of the rest of the game. The Razorbacks went over seven minutes without a field goal and only mustered one point — a free throw by Wagner with 8:12 in the first half— in that time.

The second half was better, but it didn't matter. The Volunteers outscored the Hogs 34-25 and while the shooting numbers were better — 40.5% from the field and 35.7% from three — the Razorbacks defense (more on that below) gave Tennessee too many opportunities due to poor rebounding.

"You can’t miss 10 in a row or you’re not going to win," Calipari said after the game. "We did some things good. We fought. All I kept saying was ‘Let’s get it to single digits. Let’s get it to 9 and you watch what happens.’

"We get it to 13, give up a three. So they deserved to win. They played like the No. 1 team in the country. They played with some desire. They were not going to let us come in here and win a fight. They were going to win that and they did."

Calipari revealed that he opted against a shootaround for his team prior to the start of the game, and that was evident in how the Hogs shot. It wasn't bad shot selection — Arkansas had tons of easy looks in the game — the shots just simply did not fall.

"We had a bunch of good threes, good looks, and you miss them," Calipari said. "Look, I say this all the time, you don’t have to make ‘em all. You can’t miss ‘em all. And we missed every one that gave us a chance to get back (in it). I mean, some of them badly."

Wing Johnell Davis missed all four of the shots he attempted and forward Trevon Brazile went 0-for-2 from the field. Fland finished 5-of-15 and Wagner went 6-of-12. The 37.7% the Hogs shot is a season-low and the 20.7% from deep is one of the worst of the season.

Tennessee's defense was a problem for the Razorbacks all day, and the Hogs turned the ball over 15 times. The Volunteers were flying around the floor and were especially powerful in the paint, as they allowed only 22 points down low.

Defense: F​

There's no way around it, Arkansas put up a stinker of a defensive performance against the Volunteers on Saturday, and it was most prevalent on the glass.

Arkansas lost the rebounding battle, 51-29, and gave up an astonishingly bad 24 offensive rebounds, and the Volunteers capitalized on those with 16 second-chance points. It looked, at least to the naked eye, like an effort issue most of the time.

Several times the Volunteers missed a shot and one Tennessee player came up with the ball surrounded by Razorbacks. The inability to close out defensive possessions by coming away with the rebound is what plagued Arkansas on Saturday.

"We only had one guy go to try to offensive rebound," Calipari said. "They had more offensive rebounds than we had rebounds...all I kept saying in the second half (was) let’s get it to single digits. We do something good, they get an offensive rebound.

"We do something good, they get an offensive rebound. We make it 13, they get two offensive rebounds, two threes and you look around and you’re like, ‘Guys, it has nothing to do with anything but rebounding."

To Arkansas' credit, the Hogs did block 10 shots. Big men Jonas Aidoo and Zvonimir Ivisic had three a piece and Thiero had two of his own, but those blocked shots often either went out of bounds or right into the hands of a Tennessee player.

Tennessee didn't necessarily shoot the lights out from a statistics perspective — 39.1% from the field — but beyond the arc was a problem. The Volunteers hit 10 threes and Lanier had half of those.

Also to Arkansas' credit, those 10 blocked shots are eight more than the Volunteers usually have — opponents average just 2.1 per game against them. The Hogs also had more steals (8) than Tennessee usually gives up (5.8).

At some point, the Hogs needed to key in on Lanier, but he just kept getting open and hitting shots. He finished with a game-high 29 points on 50% (10-of-20) shooting and 5-of-9 from deep.

The other player that caused problems on the offensive end for Arkansas was big man Igor Milicic. He finished with a double-double, 13 points and 18 rebounds. Six of those 18 boards were offensive boards, and the two threes he hit both came immediately after Arkansas scored.

Overall grade: D-​

This was one of those games where you just have to learn from it, flush it from your memory and move on. The Razorbacks were dominated for 35-of-40 minutes in the game and the lack of physicality and rebounding meant any comeback attempt never went anywhere.

Arkansas needs to shape up and do it quickly, because though the teams the Hogs will face in the SEC might not be as talented as Tennessee, they are just as physical.

The Razorbacks will return home to face the Ole Miss Rebels on Wednesday at Bud Walton Arena. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. and the game will air on ESPN2.