Desperate Hogs Hope Beating Georgia Can Lead to Turnaround

Cellar dwellers. In a 16-team league. My, how the mighty have fallen, all the way to the bottom of the SEC. South Carolina is hanging out with the Hogs down there in the basement, but nobody outside of the Palmetto State cares about the Gamecocks.
It's Arkansas who is being ridiculed across the country for being 0-for-5 in the SEC. John Calipari surely isn't sleeping much the last few weeks and his players are wondering what in the name of the McDonald's All-American game is going on.
Well, from the outlook of Razorback fans everywhere, this season has become an outright disaster. That's the only way to judge a big donut after five games in the league. 0-and-5. Say it again: 0-and-5.
That's bad enough if you shoot 0-for-5 in a game, or one of Dave Van Horn's Razorbacks is hitless in five trips to the plate. But 0-for-5 in the standings? That is one really large donut, a big fat zero with dwindling hope that a reversal of fortune can occur.
Admittedly, any game in the SEC will be difficult to win this season. But, as Calipari noted following Saturday's 83-65 shellacking at Missouri, that's true for all 16 teams in the country's best basketball league. So, there are two solutions.
The first involves all-out effort. Not just in games, which the Hogs sometimes seem to lack, but every day in practice. That's the easy part. Number two is improve and find a way to win. Otherwise, the Hogs — who were ranked in preseason polls and again just a few weeks ago — could end up like Missouri last season: humiliated owners of an 0-18 SEC record.
That's not likely with a Hall of Fame coach at the helm for Arkansas. Calipari's the guy with more wins than any active coach. He's also the guy who can't find answers for this team or some of its struggling players.
Have I lost faith in Calipari? Has his team? Answer is no on both counts, I'd say. But 0-for-5 makes Wednesday's home game against the Georgia Bulldogs an absolute must-win. A victory still won't do much to restore confidence and enthusiasm to Arkansas' fan base but it would give UA players a desperately needed shot of confidence.
Then, Oklahoma comes to Fayetteville on Saturday. Yep, you guessed it, another absolute must-win situation. The Sooners were 0-and-4 before grabbing a win Saturday. Beating OU would provide a booster shot of confidence before the Hogs travel to Calipari's old stomping ground in Lexington, Ky., to face the No. 8 Kentucky Wildcats.
Rupp Arena and the Kentucky crazies will be wild for that Saturday showdown. Yes, the Hogs have a bye following the Oklahoma encounter so perhaps Coach Cal can cook up something special for his unwelcome return to face the wrath of Big Blue Nation.
No point in looking any further ahead because an 0-for-5 team can't count on winning any game. It's the other guys who are now seeing Arkansas on the upcoming scheduling and circling it as a "W" while hoping they get to play the Razorbacks twice.
But, sports is often unpredictable. Win just one and players start to think they can win two. A long winning streak hardly seems possible despite the Hogs' talent but when 1-and-5 leads to 2-and-5, then players have a pep in their step and Calipari has their undivided attention.
Arkansas fans have been through similar, but less discouraging, starts to SEC play in recent years when Eric Musselman was the sideline strategist. Three seasons ago, the Razorbacks were 0-3 with a pair of road setbacks and a one-point home loss to Vanderbilt. They turned that around to finish 13-5 in the league, earn a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and surprise everyone by reaching the Elite Eight.
That won't happen this season. To simply break even in the SEC, the Hogs would have to go 9-4 down the stretch. Yep, we can all laugh out loud about that fairy tale.
But could one win lead to at least a mini-turnaround? Could the Hogs even get hot and win the SEC Tournament to earn an invite to the March Madness party? Circumstances are different but Arkansas pulled off a similar feat 25 years ago.
The Razorbacks were 15-14 overall, 7-9 in the SEC, and staring at an NIT bid they didn't want to accept. But Nolan Richardson's team caught lightning in a bottle and won four straight in the SEC Tournament.
They beat Georgia by seven, whipped No. 16-ranked Kentucky by 14, No. 10 LSU by a bucket, and topped Auburn by eight. They joyously cut down the nets at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta and punched their ticket to the Big Dance.
As an 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the Hogs lost 75-71 to sixth-seed Miami in Nashville, Tenn. But at least they made it to post-season play and created memories of a lifetime with four days of glory in Atlanta.
Calipari's team surely has those same aspirations unless the recent losing streak has sapped all of their confidence and will to win. That's doubtful. Great players, even good players, are competitive, although some more than others. These kids won't quit on Cal.
What's also unlikely is that this team will find any kind of consistent success. That's what 0-for-5 says to me.