ANDY’S NOTES: A new calm during final football recruiting week this year

PHOTO BY TED McCLENNING | HITTHATLINE.COM

With Arkansas having a football staff actually able to work more than three weeks before last year’s early signing period it’s created a rather quiet final week to the second national signing day next Wednesday.

Before this early signing period, this was one of the busiest weeks of the year with rumors, guesses and gossip. Not so much this year.

According to various reports, the Razorbacks’ staff has moved on to evaluating and offering recruits for next year.

The guess is Morris and the staff are fairly set with who they’re going to be able to sign in this cycle.

In the rankings, this class is going to finish in the 18-22 range, depending on which service you want to follow. The composite ranking right now is No. 22. They will have double-digit four-star signees for the first time in recent memory.

That is a step towards progress.

Now we’ll see if that translates to any immediate on-field success.

Youth+inexperience=frustration

Mike Anderson’s basketball team keeps fans on an emotional roller-coaster.

With a team that has 11 freshmen and sophomores you get that. Especially when Anderson and his staff don’t chase these one-and-done’s.

I’ve wondered when this fascination with the one-and-done’s causes some teams to crash and burn. It’s really caused some disparity across the landscape of the sport, but it does allow teams with a number of upperclassmen to make a run every now and then.

That creates excitement in March.

Women’s basketball on high now

Mike Neighbors has Arkansas basketball sitting in a tie with Texas A&M for third place in the SEC standings … for right now.

“I know we show up there because it’s alphabetical,” he said at his weekly press conference Tuesday, “but it’s still nice to be there.”

It’s going to be interesting over the next week to see if they stay there. That’s not being negative. In a league as solid as the SEC, well, it truly is a game-to-game proposition in basketball.

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They start playing better teams now, beginning with South Carolina, ranked 16th by the media and 18th by the coaches. The Aggies, interestingly enough, are tied with the Hogs in SEC games and one game ahead in the overall loss column and ranked 20th and 24th.

Part of that is the people they have played are just a little better than what Arkansas has faced. Part of it is former Hogs coach Gary Blair has put together a program that gets those extra votes.

The Hogs picked up a couple of votes in the coaches’ poll, none in the media poll. Make of that whatever you want.

They get a Georgia team Thursday night that is 3-4 in the league and 12-8 overall. It’s one this team needs to beat.

South Carolina comes into Bud Walton on Sunday afternoon and that will be a game that could provide a measure of improvement for this team. The Hogs were blasted by Mississippi State early and the Gamecocks will be the best team they’ve faced since then.

Next week is a road game at LSU, then home against Auburn.

That will set up the stretch run to the end.

And give some more indications of how good this team might be.

Much-needed baseball around corner

After a depressing football season, a basketball season that is up and down, many fans are ready to get the baseball season going, which happens in just over a couple of weeks (February 15).

Fans almost expect a deep run come tournament time.

Dave Van Horn isn’t quite so confident. He cautioned at Media Day last week this team may be a little over-ranked right now.

That’s his nature.

The reality is this team is mostly unknown right now. They could meet fans’ expectations if some of the younger players can handle this level right away. Sort of like Casey Martin and Heston Kjerstad did last season.

This team could also make Van Horn look like a prophet.

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