Sweet Sixteen

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor W ooooooooooooooooo Pig, am I right? Like many of you, I spent a good deal of time over the weekend rooting for the Arkansas Razorbacks. Not only are the Hogs headed back to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, but also (unless the numbers change later today as I’m writing this) the Diamond Hogs are ranked No. 1 in the NCAA College Baseball polls after winning their first 12 games.

Yes, it’s a good time to be a Razorbacks fan. The football team even seems to have turned a corner under Coach Pittman after several years of getting-beat-by-the-Citadel levels of awfulness. On a personal level, I’m most excited about the baseball team, because that’s the sport I played growing up and I’ve always been a little miffed that the Arkansas baseball program has always taken a back seat (like waaaaay in the back) to football and basketball in the eyes of Razorback fans. They’re really, really good this year, and I hope they can handle a very, very tough SEC schedule this spring (to give you an idea of how tough that’s going to be, in addition to the Diamond Hogs being No. 1, the rest of the Top 5 were all from the Southeastern Conference).

Now, full disclosure … the Razorbacks aren’t really “my” team. Yes, I root for them every chance I get, but I don’t watch every game – not even during football season. Sure, I’ve got several Hog-themed t-shirts and a hoodie. I’ve got multiple “A” adorned caps and I’ve even got a wood-carves Running Razorback placard hanging up in my office above my computer even as I type this. I can almost always correctly answer the question “Did the Hogs win yesterday?” accurately. I follow them, but again, they are not “my” team.

They are, however, my Dad’s team, and from an early age, I learned what it meant to be a Razorbacks fan. There’s something about being a Razorbacks fan that runs in my family. My Dad, all of his brothers, my Mom, her kinfolk, my cousins … almost all of them call the Hogs with great fervor (except for this branch that went off to Oxford and root for – shudders – Ole Miss). I very clearly and fondly recall listening to Dad and my uncles and older cousins veering wildly from season to season and game to game (or even from play to play) bemoaning the sad state of the Razorbacks to confidently proclaiming “this year” was going to be the year.

It wasn’t.

OK, it almost always wasn’t. I wasn’t around, about a decade too late, to catch the Razorbacks only National Football Championship in 1964, but I was definitely around in 1994, when Coach Nolan Richardson’s “40 Minutes of Hell” approach to basketball brought home the NCAA Championship. Sadly, I was also around for many of the traps and snares that have derailed many other hopeful seasons. Like Clint Stoerner attempting to run a play without, you know, the football, in 1998 on a play that in an alternate universe might have led to a second National Championship. Or on a more personal level, when three Razorback fielders let a foul ball that would have clinched the College World Series fall safely to the ground. And of course, if you follow the Hogs, you know what happened two pitches later in 2018.

Yes, Hog fans have to be conditioned to accept the highs and lows that come with Arkansas being your team. But like I said, they’re not “my” team. But I will definitely be watching this Saturday when the Razorbacks suit up for their Sweet Sixteen match-up with Oral Roberts University. On paper, it looks good for Arkansas. The Hogs are a No. 3 seed and the Golden Eagles are a No. 15 seed – the lowest seed to ever make a Sweet 16. But (and you can see how as a well-conditioned Arkansas fan, I’m already being a bit of a doomsayer) it’s worth noting that Oral Roberts not only shocked the world in beating No. 2 seed Ohio State in round one, they beat a very good No. 7 Florida to make it this far. Sure, on paper, it should be a cake walk for the Hogs, but anyone who watched Texas Tech give Arkansas all they wanted in Sunday’s 68-66 Razorbacks win knows that anything can happen, especially if you’re dealing with a determined underdog, and Oral Roberts is the Cinderella-est Cinderella who ever Cinderella- ed, and they should not be taken lightly.

And even if they win, the Hogs are almost definitely looking at an Elite Eight showdown with the No. 1 Baylor Bears who have lost exactly two games all season long (there’s that defeatist attitude again). But we will cross that bridge when and if we get there. Notice I said “we” there.

Maybe they are “my” team …