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NCAA Tournament 2021: Buy or Sell Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, and West Virginia?

By Brendan Whitehouse

AUSTIN, TEXAS - FEBRUARY 24: Miles McBride #4 of the West Virginia Mountaineers moves around Matt Coleman III #2 of the Texas Longhorns at The Frank Erwin Center on February 24, 2020 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Chris Covatta/Getty Images)
AUSTIN, TEXAS - FEBRUARY 24: Miles McBride #4 of the West Virginia Mountaineers moves around Matt Coleman III #2 of the Texas Longhorns at The Frank Erwin Center on February 24, 2020 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Chris Covatta/Getty Images) /
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NCAA Tournament Arkansas Razorbacks John Reed-USA TODAY Sports
NCAA Tournament Arkansas Razorbacks John Reed-USA TODAY Sports /

Arkansas: Sell

First game: Colgate: Friday 3/19

Potential opponents down the road: Texas Tech, Utah State, Ohio State, Florida, Virginia Tech 

Arkansas has a great record of 22-6 and 13-4 in the SEC. They are currently ranked 10th in the nation and they finished second in the regular-season conference standings which were enough to get them a bid for the 2nd best NCAA tournament seed in the SEC.

Their eight non-conference games at the beginning of the season consisted of no real competition so to look at this team’s resume it all comes down to SEC play and their four-point loss to Oklahoma State in the middle of the season.

The SEC isn’t a weak conference but it isn’t the strongest either and the Razorbacks have lost to four of the five SEC teams that are in the tournament and dropped two out of three to LSU. However, they’ve also beaten every SEC team that’s in the tournament except for Tennessee.

They beat Missouri, Florida, Alabama, and LSU in four straight games and in the middle of a nine-game winning streak before their elimination in the SEC tournament. Arkansas has already proven that they can go on a run since they went 6-0 in February and won their first three games in March.

Arkansas would probably hope to see Florida in the sweet 16 since the Gators are the SEC team in the tournament that hasn’t beat the Razorbacks this year. However, they are likely to see Ohio State in that round which I don’t think would be a good matchup for them.

Whether Baylor or Ohio State falls, the other is probably coming out of the south region. If not there are still a lot of dangerous cinderella teams in this region including the Razorbacks first-round opponent Colgate.

As a really good SEC team, I just think Arkansas has too tough of a road to get to the final four, probably the toughest out of all the 3 seeds. I don’t see them winning four straight games that are likely all non-conference opponents and against at least two top 10s and a top 25 team.

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