SEC Baseball: As LSU looks to move on, Arkansas has a last chance to kill a jinx… or fall victim to it again

Monday might mark the end of the NCAA Tournament run for Arkansas, while LSU, fresh off an impressive 4-1 win and a dominating pitching performance, looks to keep up the heat against UCLA and advance to the national semifinals.

First, for LSU — what this means is fairly self-evident. Kade Anderson was absolutely dominant against Arkansas on Saturday, working 7 brilliant innings allowing a solo homer and not much of anything else. Anthony Eyanson will look to finish off UCLA on Tuesday and place the Tigers into the semifinals of the College World Series.

After coming with Paul Skenes and crew and still relying heavily on the biggest bats in the nation back in 2023, the Tigers this year aren’t as fearsome at the plate. But if Eyanson is nearly as sharp as Anderson was, a few singles and doubles will take care of business.

Arkansas Battles a Jinx

For Arkansas, there’s so much more on the table. Is Dave Van Horn cursed? The venerable Arkansas boss has done virtually everything in college baseball, has won every accolade and honor… well, except win the NCAA Tournament. With 12 trips to Omaha and, as of yet, 0 titles, Arkansas could reasonably be said to be cursed. (Admittedly, Florida State fans read that sentence and started laughing. FSU is 0-for-24 in Omaha runs.)

Arkansas’s 2018 team was a dropped pop-up away from a title. In 2023 and 2024, Arkansas didn’t make it out of their own hosted regional battles. Dave Van Horn has won 930 games at Arkansas, but hasn’t quite managed to finish off a title. Plenty of wins, never the biggest win. Does it mean anything?

First, yes, the most obvious point is this. Baseball jinxes are absolutely real. Ask fans of the Boston Red Sox or the Chicago Cubs. Repeated failure leads to overthinking. A ground ball goes through your first baseman’s legs when you need a big out. Your left fielder throws a conniption fit when a fan doesn’t leap out of his way on a tough play reaching into the stands. The fans know it, the coach (or manager, in MLB terms) knows it, and most of all, the players on the field know it.

Is that ridiculous? After all, this group of current players were mostly in elementary or middle school when that infamous 2018 pop-up found a stretch of grass among 3 would-be Arkansas heroes. No, it’s not at all ridiculous. Bill Buckner didn’t sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Moises Alou didn’t choke away the 1969 NL pennant to the New York Mets. But at some point, a streak of bad luck becomes a slump. And a slump becomes a jinx. And a jinx can become a disease.

No, Zach Root didn’t take the mound on Saturday thinking about ghosts of Arkansas failures past. But in that second inning from hell, if a cue shot single down the line to take a lead didn’t spook him, a hit by pitch for another run and an infield ground ball for a third run certainly didn’t help. It wasn’t the 2018 team or the 2023 or 2024 teams that chased Root from the bump in the second inning. But he was aware of all of it while being part of none of it.

So is that it? Are we writing off the Hogs? Hardly.

The Comeback Path?

The good news, as both Red Sox Nation and the Wrigleyville faithful can attest, is that jinxes can be ended. It’s not pleasant and it’s not easy, but whether it’s battling back from a 3-0 deficit for an unprecedented best-of-7 win or rallying after coughing up a 3-run lead in the 8th inning of the decisive game, the best path out of jinx isn’t around it. It’s through it.

Arkansas takes the field Monday with its season on the line. The foe, of course, is lightly regarded Murray State. Lose to the Racers and the Razorback jinx suddenly has legs.

But chop down Murray, win again and force a potential showdown with LSU… and suddenly things are getting interesting.

Arkansas is still the best team in this tournament, if the ghosts of failures past don’t down the Hogs in their tracks. Monday afternoon could be another soul-crushing final chapter… or it could be the first step in a comeback from the cusp of another heartbreak. Arkansas is down and possibly cursed. But out? Not hardly.

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Joe Cox is a columnist for Saturday Down South. He has also written or assisted in writing five books, and his most recent, Almost Perfect (a study of baseball pitchers’ near-miss attempts at perfect games), is available on Amazon or at many local bookstores.