A year ago, with five regular-season games remaining, the Arkansas Razorbacks were a long shot to make the NCAA Tournament field.
The Hogs were 6-7 in SEC play and 17-9 overall.
They went on to win four in a row, with victories at Mississippi State and Kentucky, to move to 10-7 in the SEC and one victory at Alabama away from contending for a bid.
But the Hogs got blown out in the regular-season finale at Tuscaloosa and lost to No. 13 seed South Carolina in the second round of the SEC Tournament after the fifth-seeded Hogs received a bye.
Arkansas wound up in the NIT.
Today, they are in sole possession of second place in the SEC at 10-3 and are 21-5 overall.
According to ESPN's basketball power index, Arkansas is the 21st strongest team in the country. The creator of that ranking system, Joe Lunardi, has the Razorbacks as a No. 5 seed playing No. 12 Wofford in Seattle in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Razorbacks have won five in a row and eight of their past nine. The only mar on their record since losing to Ole Miss on Jan. 17 -- a loss they avenged last Saturday in Oxford -- was a 57-56 loss at Florida when the Hogs were hosed by an official who called a foul on Alandise Harris that was obviously a clean block in the final seconds of the game.
Some of the recent success may have come from the result of a coaching decision by Mike Anderson that seems mostly forgotten. Anderson benched Michael Qualls a few weeks ago when he was in a shooting slump that was affecting his defense.
Qualls has been better offensively since returning to the starting lineup, but he has turned up his defense to full blast and the rest of the Hogs have matched his intensity.
The Razorbacks have three road games remaining in SEC play -- at Mississippi State on Saturday, at Kentucky and at South Carolina -- and home games against Texas A&M and LSU.
If they continue to play defense the way Anderson teaches it, they are a lock to be in the NCAA Tournament.
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Last season Florida went undefeated in SEC play and finished 36-3.
This season the Kentucky Wildcats are chasing not only an undefeated SEC record but a perfect overall regular-season record as well. Kentucky is 13-0 in SEC play and 26-0 overall.
The Wildcats have five games remaining, two on the road and three at home, and it appears the biggest hurdle could be the Arkansas Razorbacks, who visit Rupp Arena on Feb. 28.
Arkansas swept the Wildcats last year and have a three-game winning streak, something that no doubt will be mentioned many times by Kentucky Coach John Calipari in the days leading up to that game.
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Incidentally, ESPN's Joe Lunardi has six SEC teams in his NCAA Tournament bracket: No. 1 Kentucky, No. 5 Arkansas, No. 9 Ole Miss, No. 9 Georgia, No. 10 Texas A&M and No. 11 LSU.
Looks like much of the SEC has improved since last year, making Arkansas' climb even more of a statement.
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Brendan Oman, the young man who won $5,000 for making a half-court shot at halftime of the Missouri-Arkansas game Wednesday night, caused quite a stir in the newsroom of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
His parents, Cynthia and Noel, are longtime reporters for the statewide newspaper.
In fact, Noel started his career in sports.
One year the sports staff did a college football picks contest. Everyone anted up $1 per week, and half the pot was awarded weekly and the overall winner at the end of the season received the lion's share of the accumulative pot.
We picked the games using the published point spread.
Noel won five weekly contests and the overall pot.
As Brendan grew up, Noel kept us all posted on his baseball career.
More important than being able to make a half-court shot with more than 12,000 people watching, Brendan is scheduled to graduate on time with a degree in engineering.
Sports on 02/20/2015