Dave Van Horn on NCAA Tournament: 'It's time to take a step forward'

Now, with the NCAA Tournament ready to get started, Arkansas Razorbacks head coach Dave Van Horn knows it’s time for his team to take a step forward.

This comes after Arkansas fell short in the SEC Tournament, losing to South Carolina and Kentucky in the process. It was following the final loss to the Wildcats that Van Horn explained how the team is going to take a step forward during the NCAA Tournament.

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“We’ll get back and rest up just a little bit,” Dave Van Horn said. “The message out there was this is where we wanted to be as far as we know we’re going to be in a regional, a really good opportunity to host. It’s time to take a step forward.”

The Arkansas Razorbacks earned the fifth overall seed in the Field of 64 this year and are set to host a Regional in the NCAA Tournament, with Louisiana Tech, Kansas State, and Southeast Missouri State coming to Fayetteville to compete.

“We kind of went backward a couple weeks ago, sideways,” Van Horn said. “We’ve been up and down. We need to make a move and finish this thing up right.”

Arkansas has been one of the best teams in college baseball all season long, going 43-14 and 20-10 in SEC play. That includes an excellent 33-3 home record this season. All of that success was largely on the back of an excellent pitching staff, led by future top MLB Draft pick Hagen Smith.

Despite that, the Razorbacks have struggled in recent weeks. Arkansas is just 4-7 in its last 11 games, all of which came against SEC opponents. Notably, seven of those games came against teams who are going to be hosting a Regional.

Dave Van Horn and the Razorbacks will begin their NCAA Tournament run on Friday against Southeast Missouri State.

Dave Van Horn offers analysis of Hagen Smith’s SEC Tournament start

Following the SEC Tournament, Dave Van Horn broke down what he saw from his star pitcher Hagen Smith in his SEC Tournament start.

“I think probably a little amped up, leaving some things up. Fastball up and just not real sharp. I think he got a little frustrated,” Van Horn said.

“But that’s about what we wanted him to throw right there, 35, 40 pitches and two to three innings max. And we just thought, hey, that’s enough. Give him a little opportunity to have a couple days rest more than normal leading into next weekend. Hagen’s Hagen. He’s good. He’ll be ready to go.”