Predicting Arkansas' conference record for 2024-25 season
HawgBeat basketball analyst Jackson Collier predicts Arkansas' results in SEC play.
Arkansas concluded its non-conference portion of the schedule Monday with a 96-62 win over Oakland to notch an 11-2 record entering Southeastern Conference play, despite having yet to be at full health this season.
While the Razorbacks have not been at full strength, that has allowed some extended minutes for younger players, as well as having multiple players playing different roles and positions throughout the non-conference slate. Both could be beneficial against the gauntlet of an SEC schedule the Razorbacks play.
The SEC is such a strong conference right now that it is nearly a guarantee that going 9-9 in conference play would make a team an NCAA Tournament lock. Can Arkansas get there?
Keeping with the annual tradition at HawgBeat, I will be giving my preseason predictions for the Hogs' schedule. Here are my predictions since 2020:
2020 predictions: 21-5 (13-5)
2020 actual record: 21-5 (13-4) (Texas A&M game canceled)
2021 predictions: 20-11 (10-8)
2021 actual record: 24-7 (13-5)
2022 predictions: 26-5 (15-3)
2022 actual record: 19-12 (8-10)
2023 predictions: 22-9 (10-8)
2023 actual record: 16-17 (6-12)
2024 non-conference prediction: 11-2
2024 actual non-conference: 11-2
Jan. 4 - @ Tennessee: Loss
The Razorbacks won't get an easy start to conference play with a trip on the road to Knoxville. The Volunteers enter the game against Arkansas undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll.What does the matchup look like, though? In typical Rick Barnes fashion, Tennessee has one of the best defenses in the country and even a solid offense. The addition of Chaz Lanier has thus far proven that last year's offensive explosion behind Dalton Knecht wasn't a one-off performance. Zakai Zeigler is still in Knoxville leading the SEC in assists and working as the driving force behind the Volunteers' offense.
Tennessee is one of the more complete teams in the country this season, with playmakers across all positions, but are they beatable? Absolutely. Any team in college basketball is beatable. For Arkansas, though, it will require a near-perfect game.
Both teams rely on forcing turnovers to help initiate offense, though Tennessee does not turn the ball over at a high rate. The Volunteers also have the No. 1 three-point defense in the country, while Arkansas shoots the three at a nice rate of 36.8%. Due to Tennessee's high field goal percentage and decent ability at crashing the offensive glass, the Volunteers don't allow teams a ton of opportunities to close out possessions on the defensive glass.
Those three areas — forcing turnovers, three-point percentage and defensive rebounding — have been pretty solid for the Razorbacks this year, but they will face their biggest test so far in Knoxville. That environment will be raucous, and a young Arkansas team — plus former Volunteer Jonas Aidoo — will hear it from the crowd. Tennessee wins by a decent margin, but not a blowout.
Jan. 8 - Ole Miss: Win
I still don't quite know what to make of Ole Miss. The Rebels have a quality win over Louisville, they were handled by Memphis and they lost a close game to Purdue. Outside of that, the schedule has been extremely weak and unimpressive, so it is difficult to truly take away what this team is or will be.Ole Miss is a team, similar to Tennessee, that forces turnovers but does not turn the ball over themselves. In four games against high major competition (including Memphis), the Rebels have only forced 12.5 turnovers per game, a significant step down from their season average of 16.4.
Outside of that, Ole Miss doesn't do anything else extraordinary. The team has a tendency of putting teams on the free throw line a good amount, plus the Rebels don't shoot a remarkable percentage from anywhere on the floor and they're not a very strong rebounding team. The Rebels don't have a ton of size and only have a couple of sharpshooters, which should be to the Razorbacks' advantage. The Rebels are a backcourt-driven team, much like Arkansas, and if it comes down to talent in the backcourt for each team, I like the Razorbacks' chances.
Fans will likely (probably) be rowdy given the recent history of Arkansas nearly hiring Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard, but I don't see Arkansas losing this game at home.
Jan. 11 - Florida: Win
This one is a difficult one to pick. I've gone back and forth multiple times on which way I was leaning. Initially, I had Arkansas losing for a multitude of reasons, and then I second-guessed those and justified the Razorbacks holding home court. After multiple switches again, I'm sticking with Arkansas winning this game.Florida enters conference play undefeated and has played a good amount of decent opponents, but the Gators have not really been tested by top-tier teams yet. They won on a neutral floor against North Carolina, but that was it. Not to diminish the work that they've done — it's impressive to go undefeated in the non-conference schedule — but the top-end opponents were largely absent from the schedule.
The areas to focus on in this matchup are that Florida is an elite rebounding team, the Gators protect the rim at a very high level, they force opponents to take difficult shots and they are susceptible to turning the ball over. This game will be a battle on the boards between two strong rebounding teams, a backcourt battle on the perimeter between two teams with a lot of guard talent and ultimately the winner will be whichever team takes better care of the ball and hits more tough shots.
On a neutral floor, I'd probably give the advantage to Florida, but being at home, I'm going ahead and putting this down as a very, very conservative victory for the Razorbacks.
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