Record-wise, Hogs are SEC's No. 2 team over last three years

[Pig in the Pokey]

Not sure if serious. In the event you actually believe what you typed ...

Pel had player issues immediately starting with his first class. He was constantly suspending players his last 3 seasons, running off his OWN recruits, plus guys quitting on him. Powell quit not once, but twice, DURING GAMES. Rotnei threatened to transfer after every season. Henry and the juco transfer (can't think of his name off the top of my head, but he was run off after about 4 gms) were serious trouble. Fortson always in the doghouse & suspended. APR issues galore that started back in the Heath regime.

Long didn't just fire Pel over awful teams and lagging fan support, he did an in-house investigation regarding all the issues and concluded that Pel was the problem, not the fixer of problems.

And Pel's last recruiting class was so overrated. You saw what MA and Bill Self got out of Mickelson, you saw it take 2 years to develop Madden into a fringe All SEC player but nothing special. BJ Young was a head-case like so many of Pel's recruits, not coachable, and where is he now? Abron was nothing to brag about either. Aside from those guys, MA inherited Nobles, Sanchez, Waithe, Wade, Scott, and Marshawn (who blew out his knee in 2nd game of year 1) ... that's 10 scholarship players (down to 9 after losing best player Powell, who was on-again, off-again with effort).

And just think, BEFORE Pel made things worse, the program was bad enough to send Dana A running back to the exciting metroplex of Omaha, Nebraska with the other flatlanders ... after less than 24 hours as HC. Yep, CMA walked into a dream scenario.

Truth is, Anderson was a level or two higher than ANYBODY else who would have taken our job.

[Pig in the Pokey]

The only thing this stat proves is that there's Kentucky and everyone else. Just like in Football, there is Bama and everyone else.

well, Mike Anderson is 3-5 vs Kentucky as the Hog HC and 4-6 overall counting UAB. And that is with teams that were picked to LOSE EVRY single one of those games. Now that he has a very good roster and great recruits stacked up for the next THREE YEARS, I am sure he will continue to win his fair share vs Kentucky. If fact I figure we will be splitting games with them at worst, beginning in the SEC tourney this year, damnit!!

[Pig in the Pokey]

There is nothing really defensible about the Pelphrey era.  But Mike didn't have to keep that first recruiting class.  He and his staff were in this region of the country.  They could have, should have, been recruiting to Mizzou.  In fact, the move to Arkansas initiative went into full effect before his last season at Mizzou.  Even though Mike had set it up to where he had maybe only 1 spot for a recruit at Mizzou, a coaching staff should always be recruiting.  Yet they hadn't.  He could have let those Pel recruits go but he grabbed Scotty and took off after them immediately. 

The class was being touted as one which should have saved an undqualified and underperforming coach's job.  It was to be a program changer.  One that was going to elevate the program back to relevancy.  A class with 0 McD AA and two top 25-50 recruits.  It was dumb.

The rating part was just based on the math of where the class' numbers compared to the others.

because he is a man of character and didn't want to screw Missouri over?? I applaud him for that.

[Kevin McPherson]

Also, I would point out that the schedules are not balanced.  Thus, the overall SEC record over those 3 years is not based on equitable schedules.  This season alone we have played LSU, Mizzou, and Vanderbilt twice.  Those three teams are at the bottom of the league.  I haven't looked at the schedule over the past three years, but I'd say this year's is mighty generous.

So, if the Hogs make the NCAAT this year, that makes 2 out of last 3 years -- only KY would be better w/ 3 out of 3, leaving Hogs next at 2 out of 3 and 7 other teams tied at 1 each ... given that Hogs had benefit of softer SEC slate than other SEC teams, wouldn't that make the feat of getting to the NCAAT a bit more impressive? Remember, just racking up wins (whether OOC, SEC, or both) is not enough, it's quality as determined in large part by RPI and SOS (at least it has been and will be thru this year).

Can't have it both ways. If Hogs are winning because of lesser SEC comp relative to other SEC teams, then the challenge of building the NCAAT resume is that much harder for the Hogs.


Thus, if Hogs' SEC record AND number of NCAATs over the past 3 seasons BOTH come in 2nd behind only KY, is it not reasonable to say CMA has the program as the 2nd-best in the SEC during that span? We can throw in road and home wins, too, and I'd think Hogs are among the top 2-3 teams in the league in same span. That's not "cherry-picking" data, it's looking at SEVERAL meaningful measurables.

[Stewhog 11]

Ehh...  I have a hard time ignoring half of a coach's tenure to establish an upward trend.  I see Nolan's first six years as an upward trend.  I see MA's first six years as mixed bag of nuts.

1985–86 Arkansas 12–16 4–12 7th 
+1986–87 Arkansas 19–14 8–8 5th NIT Second Round
+1987–88 Arkansas 21–9 11–5 T–2nd NCAA First Round
+1988–89 Arkansas 25–7 13–3 1st NCAA Second Round
+1989–90 Arkansas 30–5 14–2 1st NCAA Final Four
+1990–91 Arkansas 34–4 15–1 1st NCAA Elite Eight

2011–12 Arkansas 18–14 6–10 9th 
+2012–13 Arkansas 19–13 10–8 7th 
+2013–14 Arkansas 22–12 10–8 5th NIT Second Round
+2014–15 Arkansas 27–9 13–5 2nd NCAA Second Round
-2015–16 Arkansas 16–16 9–9 T–8th 
+2016–17 Arkansas 19–7 8–5  This a + but likely still lower than year 3, hence still not an overall upward trend

Your post actually kind of convinced me of the opposite point that you were trying to make. Look at the shape of the graph in the first few years of Richardson's tenure compared to Anderson's so far. A very similar trend. Obviously Nolan's section of the graph is shifted up by a few wins, but that could be attributed to the state of the program when he arrived. Following Sutton v.s. following Pelphrey. He still went a few years building on the number of wins from the previous year, dropped down a little, then rose back up to a few more years of success. Anderson has followed that same trend, and using things like recruiting classes to infer the future, it seems like it will continue.