Calipari's Razorbacks holding steady as high seed in latest NCAA projections

Originally posted on Arkansas Razorbacks on SI
By Kevin McPherson | Last updated Aug 26, 2025 7:35 PM ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas had lofty preseason projections a year ago under then-first-year coach John Calipari, and that'll be the case again entering the fast-approaching second Calipari campaign.

From various way-too-early preseason polls to way-too-early Bracketology projections that predict the NCAA Tournament field, Arkansas is garnering national respect.

What that looks like are national Top 25 rankings trending in the 10-to-15 range. For example, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports ranks Arkansas preseason No. 11.

In the case of highly regarded ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi, he's oscillated between a 4- and 5-seed projection for the Razorbacks in his 68-team NCAA Tournament prediction report that he updates monthly during the offseason.

His most-recent Bracketology was released by ESPN earlier today. For the second consecutive update to his report he has Arkansas slotted as a 4-seed in the NCAAT field that will actually be announced in March 2026 after teams have proven their mettle over the course of a 31-game regular season followed by conference tournaments.

He's also projecting 14 SEC teams to qualify for the NCAAT (only LSU and South Carolina, like last season, were left out), which if it plays out that way would match last season's SEC record-setting number of teams from any single conference making the Big Dance.

It's impressive enough to note that Calipari's non-conference scheduling is extremely challenging if not brutal, at least to the extent we know about it now prior to the official release of the entire non-conference slate.

Combining four non-conference opponents (Houston, Duke, Texas Tech, and Michigan State) and four SEC foes (Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Auburn twice), Arkansas will face all of last season's NCAAT Elite Eight teams in what will amount to 9 of its 31 regular-seasons games.

What's key here is that all of those teams will enter the upcoming season with renewed high expectations from most of the same national analysts providing these way-too-early poll rankings and NCAAT projections.

Based on Lunardi's NCAAT projections, we can extrapolate several things as it relates to Arkansas: a) the Razorbacks would play 20 of their 31 regular-season games against the projected NCAAT field; b) they'd play 3 of the 4 projected 1-seeds; c) they'd play 7 games against teams projected to be seeded equal to or higher than themselves; and d) of the aforementioned 21 games against projected NCAAT teams they'd play 12 away from home (3 neutral-site and 9 true road tilts) and 8 at home at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville.

Here is Lunardi's latest seeding projections for SEC teams in addition to five of Arkansas' known non-conference opponents: