Razorbacks' Dave Van Horn Not Expecting Easy Regional

"We're prepared for what we're getting into," he says before this week's regional

Author:
Andy Hodges
Publish date:
May 30, 2023 10:22 PM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When Arkansas fans found out Santa Clara was the lowest-seeded team this week in the Fayetteville Regional, they were just like Dave Van Horn watching the selection show Monday night.

"They won somethin,g" he said after the selection. "They’re a championship team. So all I know is probably just a little bit more than most people know about them, what popped up on the board. We’ll look into them right now."

Hey, there's a lot of teams playing college baseball and coaches don't usually keep up with teams from northern California that aren't playing in a Power 5 conference. The game will be available only via streaming on ESPN+ at 2 p.m., so not many folks will be watching for that.

The second game at 8 p.m. between TCU and Arizona is on ESPNU and will have a bigger viewing audience. All of that is purely speculative because the weather forecasts are not very good on any day the rest of the week. Thunderstorms and rain are in the forecast so it may be a moving target at best.

Whoever wins that game will have one loss, which is not the preferred way to go in a double-elimination tournament. But the Razorbacks can only take advantage of that if they get past Santa Clara on Friday ... whenever that game is played. Van Horn knows more about both of them, especially the Horned Frogs.

"What a really talented team," Van Horn said of TCU. "Older team. Veteran team. Good mix of speed and defense. Power. Just following scores, and I follow most of the teams in our region. We felt like we’d get somebody from the area. Wasn’t sure it would be TCU.

"But they’ve had a great year. I did watch them win the Big 12 championship game yesterday. I watched most of it. We all had a thought they might be heading this way. They’ve had a super year."

On the other hand, the Wildcats were 4-14 and 14-18 in the Pac-12 this year.

"That league is awfully good," Van Horn said. "They were a team that had to wait to see if they got in and they got in, so I’m sure they’re extremely excited to be playing."

A big part of that is Van Horn being respective of possible opponents. He's never been particularly interested in giving anyone something to put on a billboard. Then again, he probably didn't expect anything in a regional to be that easy. All of that is assuming the weather breaks often enough to squeeze games in.