Ask Mike: Diamond Hogs No. 1, Softball Takes Down No. 2 Gators, & Cal Remains Silent on ’26 Hoop Hogs

Our first question is from who else? Mousetown who is feeling grumpy over the lack of news about the makeup of Arkansas basketball team for next season.

Q: He says: I’m starting to think that all of you media experts are just making stuff up about what Cal is or is not up to these days. Admit it. You two don’t know jack about the situation. You’re in the dark like the rest of us.

A. That for certain describes me. I’m not a recruiting or portal guru. That’s why we have Kevin McPherson. I listened to his podcast Sunday night. He went for over 20 minutes discussing all the possibilities. It made my head spin. However Courtney has her own sources. She’s convinced that she has a handle on what’s happening so I will defer to her for an explanation of where were are as of early Monday afternoon, the day of the national championship game.

Courtney: I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, you don’t need to worry. Calipari is prioritizing keeping players around for another season, which is why they have been relatively quiet when it comes to the portal. That doesn’t mean they won’t make some portal moves over the course of this week. I expect some announcements on who is returning and who is committing coming up very soon.

Q. hoggystyle78 asks: Would you rather have Nate Ament the 6’9 5 star freshman forward or do you think the Hogs BB team would be better served getting a big man out of the portal?

A. Ament was never intended to be a replacement for Jonas Aidoo. He more closely resembles Trevon Brazile. Cal started recruiting Ament way before Brazile started to turn his game around. Now that he has, a better question would be, would I rather have Brazile back as a 5th year player or Ament as true freshmen?

I would take Brazile. However, supposedly Cal really wants him and is reserving some big time NIL money to try to land him. If you believe this, supposedly it is one of the reason why we haven’t heard more. Cal Is waiting for Ament to make a decision. Some say he’s going to Duke. Since Duke’s season is over shouldn’t we have heard something by now? Well, supposedly he’s also looking at at least two other schools.

Q. Eddy Lynn says: A lot of the experts are saying that a bogus foul called on Duke’s Cooper Flagg decided the national championship. Is this another example of the best team not winning the NCAA Tournament?

A. First of all the call was made by a ref behind Houston’s J’Wan Roberts. From that angle I can see where he might have thought Flagg reached over the top of Roberts and fouled trying to pull down the rebound. From the TV angle, in front of and above Roberts and Flagg, it appears there was no foul. However I reject the claim that it cost Duke the game. Even though the free throws by Roberts put Houston up by a point Flagg had a chance to win it with 4 seconds left but missed a fall away jumper. Also Duke led that game from 14:40 in the first half all the way to 19 seconds left in the game. They led by six with 47 seconds left. They stopped making shots. Everybody overlooked Houston who had the longest winning streak in the country. The expert kept saying that Houston wins when it holds teams in the 60’s but Duke was on track to score in the 80’s. They didn’t make it. Duke scored 67.

As far as the best team not winning the national title, that happens a lot in college basketball. All those Kentucky fans and some Hog fans who were going off on Cal because Arkansas blew a big lead against Texas Tech, explain how that happened to Duke, the most talented team in the country?

The national champion in basketball wins a national tournament with 64 teams in the field. To find the actual best team you might need to make the field smaller and make the tournament double elimination. Beyond that make the final two teams play a three game series like we see in Omaha.

But that’s not gonna happen.

Q. Marty Byrde’s proxy wants to know: What’s the lowdown on spring football? I know coach Pittman had a press conference but it’s been unusually quiet otherwise.

A. He’s talked more than once, plus various players have been available for the entire time. I really think we’re not going to see Pittman give specific evaluations of players involved in a battle for starting or backup positions because they don’t want to discourage competition for the positions. The transfer portal opens at the end of spring ball and a certain number of players will hit it figuring they are not going to factor in in the fall. Pittman wants to prevent that at least until spring football is over. That’s why he doesn’t release a depth chart.

If you want to evaluate this team watch the spring game. It will answer a lot of questions.

Q. WVHogfan says: Coach Pittman stated he will look in the portal for all the positions on defense. Are we going to be that weak on defense?

A. I think you may have misunderstood what he said. He said at the start of spring ball that he did not anticipate adding any players out of the portal on the offensive side. He also said that when spring ball is over, depending on how it goes he might try to add an interior defensive lineman and an additional player at safety and cornerback. Lately there has been speculation that Arkansas might look for more help at receiver if the right player enters the portal.

But to answer your question, no, it does not appear that Arkansas is going to be weak on defense.

Q. sgiles says: I can’t get comfortable with any of Arkansas weekend starters. They can’t seem to settle in. Early on Root struggled against a really weak Missouri lineup. Do that against Georgia and he’ll get burned.

A. Root got the win in that game. He pitched 5 innings and only gave up 3 hits but he was charged with 3 runs. He walked two and hit a batter but he also struck out 7. The ERA’s of the three weekend starters are higher than you’d want out of your primary rotation but those guys are a combined 9-1 on the season. Root has the only loss but he has the best ERA at 3.48. Landon Beidelschies, the Sunday starter, improved his ERA yesterday. He’s at 3.82. Gabe Gaeckle’s ERA is really bad at 5.77. He’s 1-0 with a lot of no decisions. However, Arkansas is still 5th in team ERA in the SEC at 3.53. That’s largely due to the bullpen pitching.

I share your concern, especially with some of the top hitting teams in the SEC coming up on the Hogs’ schedule. Teams like LSU, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas
and Florida all have better team batting averages than Ole Miss, South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Missouri, the teams Arkansas has played to date.

Arkansas pitching is about to get really challenged.

Q. PopularPorkster says: I thoroughly enjoyed the thrashing that we gave Missouri over the weekend. Can you breakdown the hitting statistics for the team so far, and can you remember another Razorback squad that crushed the ball like this one?

Arkansas leads the SEC in hitting with a .335 average. LSU is second at .330. If that .335 number were to hold up it would rank second all time at Arkansas behind the ’97 Razorbacks.

Two batters are hitting over .400. Seven of nine are hitting .310 or better. Six are hitting .340 or better. Carson Boles, who’s started in 6 games, is batting .409.

The Hogs are still 3rd in the league in home runs with 72 in 33 games. Tennessee has 77 and Georgia has 87. That’s 2.1 home runs a game for the Hogs, way above the record of 1.44 per game set in 2010. Three Razorbacks have hit 10 or more home runs. Five have hit 7 or more.

It will be interesting to see How Arkansas’ hitters match up with Texas’ pitching which leads the SEC with a 3.04 ERA. That series is coming up on May 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Baum-Walker will be jammed for the first conference baseball series between Arkansas & Texas since May 3rd of 1991. Texas took two of three from the Razorbacks that weekend at old George Cole Field.

Q. “The” Diamond Hog says: I really enjoyed seeing the Ags take two of three from Tennessee moving us to #1 but I’ve worried all season that they might come alive in time to cause us some real problems. Wish we had already played them.

A. The stunning thing about those two games is that they weren’t close and it was a road series for the Aggies. Adding to the craziness is that on Friday Tennessee run ruled A&M 10-0 in 7 innings. They had just lost two of three to Kentucky at home and got swept by Vanderbilt in Nashville the week before that. Then suddenly their bats came alive on Saturday.
So what does this mean? Keep an eye on the South Carolina Series coming up this weekend at A&M.

If the Aggies have indeed turned things around at least the Hogs get them in Fayetteville in a series that starts a week from this Thursday with that game set for the SEC Network.

Q. Hogdogger asks: Has the NCAA said anything about using torpedo bats in college baseball?

A. Nothing that I know of. The bat itself is legal in the major leagues. Not sure how that would apply to composite bats used in college. As I understand it a torpedo bat provides more power within a smaller sweet spot. As such, not all players may end up using it. A version of this with a huge sweet spot was used in the college game in the late 90’s and there were some gaudy home run numbers as well as some titanic home runs. It was eventually banned.

Q. Hawgredneck asks: How about a shoutout to Courtney Deifel’s softball Razorbacks? They just took down number 2 Florida on the road. The rest of the SEC had better watch out. We’re coming after you.

A. For starters that is the highest ranked team Arkansas has ever taken a series from. Here’s the interesting part since starting conference play at 1-5 against Ole Miss and Oklahoma Arkansas was won two of three from number 7 Tennessee, swept Kentucky and took two of three from number 2 Florida. So Arkansas has moved above .500 after that bad start and at 8-7 in the SEC the Arkansas ladies have also entered the top 10 at number 7. They have a chance to move up even more with a big road series coming up later against number 3 A&M before closing out at home against number 4 LSU.