As soon as the buzzer sounded on the Arkansas Razorbacks 76-60 loss at Ole Miss on Saturday, emails and texts started coming in.
The messages continued through Tuesday.
The good news is the fans are not apathetic. They are upset, disappointed, even angry.
Many inquired about Mike Anderson's job security, which appears to be good.
When Anderson came to the Razorbacks, the program was broken. It had gone from national powerhouse to a run-of-the-mill SEC basketball team.
It is not a coincidence the SEC has become the dominant football conference while its basketball has slipped badly.
The often-heard excuse is that Kentucky is so good it makes the rest of the teams look mediocre. That's just not the truth. Sometimes Florida has been pretty good, too.
In the past five NCAA Tournaments, the SEC has an overall record of 39-19. Take Kentucky's 19-3 record out of the mix, and the league is 20-16.
If you take away Florida's 13-4 record, the SEC is 7-12 in the past five tournaments. That spells mediocrity.
Last year, the Razorbacks made the field and went 1-1, losing to a very good North Carolina team. That team lost its two best players, Bobby Portis and Michael Qualls, after both declared for the NBA Draft. Plus, Anderson lost two seniors who had become very good role players: Rashad Madden and Alandise Harris.
Granted, that should not have left the gaping hole it did, but it did.
Before the Razorbacks got into conference play, there were signs this was going to be a tough year. It is easy to sit back and ponder where would they be if they won some of those games they should have, but they didn't.
Akron and Dayton are likely to win their conferences, but Hogs fans are not used to losing to teams from the Mid-American and Atlantic 10 conferences. And they definitely are not accustomed to losing in overtime to a middle-of-the-pack Southern Conference team, Mercer, in front of a great Verizon Arena crowd.
Wake Forest and Georgia Tech are a combined 4-21 in ACC play, and Stanford is 5-7 in Pac-12 action. All three beat the Razorbacks.
In SEC play, the Razorbacks are 1-6 on the road and 4-1 at home, with the one loss being to Kentucky, which seems to be peaking at the right time.
The Hogs have six games remaining and four are home, starting tonight with Auburn. A victory may not stop the bleeding, but it would be a nice lead-in to Saturday's game against Missouri when former Coach Eddie Sutton finally will be honored for his 260-75 record and for being the coach who built the foundation of the program and created a fan base.
A fan base that has some unhappy members right now, but that's understandable.
The Razorbacks program wasn't just a fixture for the NCAA Tournament under Sutton and Nolan Richardson, it was a nationally respected program.
Richardson took the Hogs to three Final Fours and won the 1994 championship.
Since his departure after the 2002 season, the Razorbacks have been to the Big Dance four times and are 2-4. In that span, they have been one and done nine times in the SEC Tournament.
Last season's 27-9 team, 13-5 in SEC play (second place) and 1-1 in the NCAA Tournament got hopes up that the Hogs had turned a corner.
Instead they are in rebuilding mode again, and while it is understandable some fans are thinking a change is needed -- that's common in college athletics these days -- the main thing is the fans still care.
Sports on 02/17/2016