Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn talked after the 19-2 win over Northwestern State on the quick start offensively, Heston Kjerstad’s hitting, mental errors.
???? Tuesday Halftime Pod — featuring Nikki Chavanelle
Phil & Tye discuss Saban impacting Arkansas, interview Nikki Chavanelle, and Get Off My Lawn!
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Tuesday
John and Tommy discuss sports tech, recap Yurachek’s comments, and more!
Martin, Noland get weekly SEC honors after sweeping Bulldogs
FAYETTEVILLE — Following last week’s sweep of Mississippi State where Arkansas outscored the Bulldogs, 27-10, and now sits atop the SEC West, Casey Martin was named the SEC’s player of the week.
Freshman right-hander Connor Noland also took home the league’s co-freshman of the week honors.
The pair led the Hogs to a 4-0 record for the week and are now 30-10 on the year and 12-6 in league play.
Casey Martin | Player of the Week
Martin hit .471 for the week with five of his eight hits and six of his 10 RBIs coming against the second-ranked Bulldogs.
His performance helped Arkansas to its second SEC series sweep and second sweep over Mississippi State in the last three years.
He also totaled a career-high four RBIs twice, once coming in the 16-4 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff and the other in a 12-5 series-clinching victory over MSU.
The Lonoke native takes a five-game hitting streak into this week’s midweek series against Northwestern State and he has at least one hit in 15 of his last 17 games with a .391 average over his last 10 games with eight extra-base hits and 11 RBIs.
On Friday, Martin hit his first career grand slam, his eighth home run of the year, to help the Hogs earn an important series victory over the Bulldogs.
He finished the game 2-for-3 and also tied a career-high with three walks.
Martin now has 17 doubles on the year and is tied for the SEC lead in the category with MSU’s Jake Mangum and teammate Dominic Fletcher. He is also fourth in the SEC in total bases (97).
Connor Noland | Co-Freshman of the Week
Noland had his best week as a Razorback, earning his first two wins of the year after throwing two scoreless frames against Arkansas-Pine Bluff and 7.2 scoreless against the Bulldogs.
The 7.2 innings pitched on Saturday was a season-long as he struck out five batters and scattered four hits without giving up a walk.
The five strikeouts were his second-most in a game this year, two shy of his season high of seven coming in his first career outing in February (vs. EIU – Feb. 16).
Up Next
Arkansas continues the homestand next Tuesday and Wednesday as it welcomes Northwestern State to Baum-Walker Stadium for a two-game series.
First pitch on Tuesday is set for 6:30 p.m., followed by game two on Wednesday at 3 p.m.
You can hear both games at ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home. Pregame coverage starts 30 minutes before the first pitch.
Both games will be televised online on SEC Network+.
???? Monday Halftime Pod — featuring Harry King
Phil Elson & Tye Richardson hit on not overreacting to the sweep, interview Harry King and more!
Van Horn on starting Ramage Tuesday, ex-assistants at Northwestern
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn met with the media Monday morning to preview the midweek series with Northwestern, a school where he started and has fond memories of being there.
Hunter Yurachek joins The Morning Rush to discuss Musselman and more!
Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek joins The Morning Rush to discuss Eric Musselman, the coaching search process, season tickets and more!
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday
John & Tommy discuss Hogs sweeping MSU, buyouts, next goal for Arkansas athletics, and best/worst of the weekend!
Recruiting transfers not a negative these days, but way of life
New Arkansas coach Eric Musselman landed his first new face of the spring signing period Saturday when Jeantal Cylla committed to be at Arkansas as a graduate transfer.
If you’re complaining about transfers being a problem, you’re living in the past. Thanks to the NCAA throwing the rule book in the trash a page at a time it’s a way of life now.
The Razorbacks will be the third team Cylla has played for in his collegiate career. That’s not a knock on him, by the way, because he appears to be another solid, well, journeyman that’s becoming a trend.
After graduating from North Carolina-Wilmington, where he averaged 13.7 points and 4.6 rebounds while shooting 42 percent from the field and 31 percent on 3-pointers last year, he now fills a roster spot for Musselman on a team that needed some experience.
It was the problem Mike Anderson pointed to this past season where there were some highs, but too many lows, which ended up costing him his job.
Enter Musselman, who guided Nevada to three straight NCAA appearances and a Sweet 16 using transfers. It was something some Hog fans have noted, questioning if that will work here.
Recruiting high school players is the old way of doing things when coaches got four or five years to develop players and their program. Now they’re lucky if to three years. More likely two years if things aren’t progressing rapidly.
You can thank the NCAA. There once was a time when transferring meant losing a year of eligibility while sitting around just practicing. The smart ones spent it getting ahead of academics. Dumb ones flunked out and were never heard from again. Most were somewhere in the middle, hoping everything worked out because there was no way to move again.
Now, in football, the past two Heisman Trophy winners were transfer quarterbacks. Think about that for a second.
That means two schools didn’t do a whole lot of either evaluation, development or coaching and let two Heisman-winning players get away. You can justify it nine ways to Sunday and back, but that’s the bottom line.
By the way, both of the coaches who let Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray leave are no longer coaching at Texas A&M and Texas Tech, respectively. Suit yourself, but I don’t believe in coincidence.
Yes, that means in some cases the inmates are running the asylum. Coaches who win — Dabo Sweeney and Nick Saban are the most high profile examples — are the best at coaxing talented players to maximize THEIR potential for the team’s benefit.
Gone are the days when a coach just simply laid down the law and worked players until the malcontents simply quit or everybody fell in line. If they quit that meant they were usually finished or playing at a lower-classification school.
Now you have good players making two or three stops in college.
Recruiting these days is much more than chasing high school kids. Now coaches see who’s in the mysterious NCAA Transfer Portal. If you want proof the NCAA has just completely given up, well, there you have it.
Little Rock attorney Tom Mars apparently figured out the worst you can do going up against the kangaroo court that runs college athletics is get a tie. Representing transfers he’s discovered you’ll usually win against the NCAA … and never have to go to court.
The way eligibility waivers are being handed out these days is drawing us closer to complete free agency in college athletics.
Whether that’s good or bad is somebody else’s argument to have.
It’s the way it is.
Musselman is just recruiting players to make the Hogs better as fast as possible. Just like Chad Morris is doing in football and every other coach in every other sport at the UA.
And in the end, wins are what Razorback fans want.
Whether the players come in as freshmen or fifth-year seniors with one year of eligibility really doesn’t matter. Let’s be honest, if you sign four of the best players in the country every year they are going to be gone to the NBA and you’ve got to do it again.
Exactly what the difference is in recruiting escapes me.
Wins are what matter.
Canaan gets Saturday’s game off to fast start with first pitch
Arkansas super fan Canann Sandy was at Baum-Walker Stadium on Saturday and threw out the first pitch with some flair, then talked to the team and pumped them up before the 10-2 win over Mississippi State.







