Joe Lunardi has become one of the gurus of NCAA Tournament bracketology.
He's not the only one, but the ESPN college basketball analyst is really good at predicting the NCAA Tournament field.
In the past seven years he's picked every team correctly two times, twice he had one miss and once he had two. In the two seasons he was off, he was still far better than most.
The reason for bringing that up is that his most recent bracket Monday, which will be updated Friday, had the Arkansas Razorbacks as a No. 6 seed playing No. 11 Tulsa in Omaha, Neb. He has the winner facing the winner of the Iowa State-Louisiana Tech game, which could end up with a rematch of the Hogs and Cyclones, something the NCAA doesn't usually like that early in the tournament.
No one said Lunardi gets every seed and matchup right, just that he can name the field or come really close to it.
Not sure if he is right that if the season ended today the Hogs would be a No. 6 seed, but that indicates what most are starting to feel, which is that only Arkansas can knock itself out of the March Madness field.
If the Razorbacks continue to play defense the way they have the past two games, that's not going to happen.
Defense is the cog in Coach Mike Anderson's wheel.
It doesn't matter who you are playing, if you hold a SEC team -- or any college team for that matter -- to two field goals in a half, then you are playing some steal-their-chewing-gum defense.
The Razorbacks have won six of their past seven, including three in a row, since back-to-back losses to Tennessee and Ole Miss.
The loss at Tennessee was repaid when the Razorbacks beat the Vols on Jan. 27.
On Saturday, they have a chance to avenge the home loss to the Rebels when they travel to Oxford in what could be the most critical game remaining on their regular-season schedule.
Lunardi also has Ole Miss in the NCAA Tournament as a No. 10 seed. Two losses to the Rebels could drop the Razorbacks in the seeding and even put them on the bubble come Selection Sunday.
If the Rebels win at Florida tonight, they remain in a tie with Arkansas for second place, so seeding for the SEC Tournament is on the line as well.
Ole Miss has been the surprise SEC team this season. It is 7-3 in conference play and 16-7 overall.
The Rebels go into Gainesville, Fla., riding a five-game winning streak, and regardless of tonight's outcome, it won't be surprising if Andy Kennedy complains about the scheduling that had his team playing twice in nearly 48 hours.
Arkansas faced that when it hosted Alabama on Jan. 22 and then went to Missouri on Jan. 24, and having the second game on the road is a little tougher. Arkansas won both of those games.
In fact, if not for a bad officiating call at Florida -- will the Hogs ever get a break in Gainesville? -- the Razorbacks would be riding a seven-game winning streak since losing 96-82 to the Rebels.
Arkansas has seven conference games left, four on the road -- including a trip to Lexington to face Kentucky -- and three at home.
A victory Saturday and three at home, and the Hogs don't have to worry about how deep they go in the SEC Tournament, although they could win six out of those final seven and pretty much put themselves in position to be a No. 4 or No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
They have gotten themselves where they are today with a defense that seems to be getting better by the game, and on the road against Auburn the offense clicked, too.
It looks like Arkansas might be peaking at the right time.
Sports on 02/12/2015