What’s next for Arkansas Razorbacks baseball? | Luttie’s Lookback

Nick Luttrell breaks down the Arkansas Razorbacks baseball season and the heartbreaking loss as well as what’s next for the team.

0:00 Intro
5:32 Luttie’s Legend of the Week
4:06 Razorbacks baseball season recap
14:09 What’s next for the team?
21:06 NBA Finals talk
22:25 Look Ahead

What’s going on everybody? Welcome in to another episode of Loie’s Look Back. My name is Nick Lucch. We’ve got a fun show today. Yes, I know the Hogs lost and it was quite literally the worst possible way for the season to come to an end. But don’t, don’t mute me yet or turn it off quite yet. We’re barely gonna talk about this game. We’re gonna talk about the season as a whole is it really what we’re going to do. So I’m gonna pre preview this show, what we’ve got ahead. I’ll hand out my Luie’s legend of the week in a second because there was some. Positives in Omaha despite the way it ended. I’ll do my three big things kind of season and review style, and then we’ll look ahead. Who’s coming back to this Arkansas baseball team for next year? What does the roster look like for next year? What’s that transition going to be like? So you want to stick around for all of that content today we’re actually gonna start with my Ludy’s legend of the week, and it’s, it’s really no surprise. And again, I, I know, I know how you fans are. If you’re a true fan of this Arkansas team. You may not even want to watch this week’s episode. You may just see it on your TV and change the channel, and I am gonna briefly touch on Omaha, and I know it’s something that you probably don’t want to even hear about. Maybe you’re not over the way things ended yet. I feel like I am because I kind of have to be. It’s kind of my job in some way. I gotta move on and I hope you’ll get there someday too if you’re not already there. But that doesn’t the way things ended for Arkansas doesn’t take away from the accomplishments they had throughout the season and from the accomplishments they had in Omaha, and that started with Gauge Wood, who is my Luie’s legend of the week and, and how can he not be if you somehow missed it, he threw the first no-hitter. In College World Series history since 1960, so it had been a while since there had been a no hitter in the College World Series. It was the third time it had ever happened in CWS history, the 11th time it’s ever happened in Arkansas baseball history. For him to do that on the biggest stage when Arkansas was faced the elimination, granted against Murray State, but for him to do that exceptional, exceptional for the kid. From Batesville, 9 innings pitched, 19 strikeouts, which was an Arkansas record, 0 runs, 0 hits, 1. One walk I guess if you want to call it a walk, it was a hit by pitch. If he doesn’t throw, throw that ball and it goes 2 inches to left or right and doesn’t hit his foot, he probably pitches a perfect game, which I don’t think has ever been done that I can remember or know of in. I don’t know, it’s probably it’s probably happened a few times, but not in recent memory in the College World Series or in obviously not in the College World Series in a while. I, I feel like I, I feel like I’m pretty strong in Arkansas baseball knowledge and I, I don’t remember it at all. So that would be that would have been pretty impressive. He was just one hit by pitch away, but what a performance from Gauge Wood. If I had to give it to somebody else besides Gauge Wood, who this is, this guy actually came to my mind first because I think of the entirety of Arkansas State and Omaha, who was the most clutch, who was the best out of their team besides the phenomenal performance. From Gauge Wood, it’d be Justin Thomas Junior. The 9 hole for the Razorbacks, 8 hits, 14 at bats, a 571 batting average, and 3 runs batted in. That’s the 9 hole, the best 9 hole in the freaking country. I know college baseball’s over with. LSU won the whole thing. Hooray for them. But Arkansas had one of the best teams in the country, obviously they made to the semifinals. Justin Thomas Junior was that guy in Omaha and he helped helped Arkansas get to. Get to where they were in the semifinals and have a really good shot to win the whole thing and they din it and that really stinks that doesn’t take away from Gauge Wood’s performance and Justin Thomas’s performance. Gauge Wood though obviously outweighing Justin Thomas Junior for Mylute’s legend of the week. Let’s now move on to my three big things. Normally we do it recapping the week that it was in Arkansas or the weekend that it was in Arkansas sports. This is a different one. The first time I’m doing a little bit different in, uh, in the entire show’s history. I’m doing more of a season review this week, a season review of the 3 things that I want to take away and you see it behind me. The first thing. Offense the best. Under head coach Dave Van Horn for the Razorbacks. The second big thing, the healloy, also the best Arkansas shortstop ever to put on a Razorback uniform. And then the third big thing, is it the best team ever in the Dave Van Horn era? Not quite. And I’ll get to that later. Let’s go back up to my first thing. The first thing of my three big things, the offense, best of the DVH era. Now I’m gonna read a few stats and then I’ll talk about those stats because it’s kind of mind blowing what this offense did this season. And I was looking at it on my way to Omaha. What is this team, you know, offensively I knew they’d been really good and now I’m able to see it. A 309 batting average, that’s the best they’ve had under Dave Van Horn. That’s top 10 all time in school history. 550 runs, the best in the Dave Van Horn era, 3rd all time in razorback history. 672 hits, ninth all time, 127 home runs. That was the only one they set the record. That was kind of the big record they set this year was home runs, 127 of them. And really Arkansas wasn’t a home run hitting team this season. They were an offensive powerhouse, but they weren’t a team that’s like just hit home runs like. 2021 was when they just hit home runs it kind of felt like they relied on the home runs or maybe even two seasons ago they relied on the home run. They didn’t do that this year, but yet they set the school record for home runs 127 of them and you know what, maybe they’ll get more next year because I bet they got a pretty good team coming in next year. They’ll probably be a preseason top five team. There’s a lot of home runs though. First in the Dave Van Horn era, first all time. 516 RBI, second all time, first for DVH 334 walks, offensive walks, that’s 3rd all time, first for DVH 89 total bases, second all time, first in DVH. I can, I can read all these stats. I can go on and on. But really when you think about this team, when you think about the season that they put together, it was an offensive minded team and yes could have pitch could pitching have been better at times this season, yes, but they relied on their offense and it was a fun offense to watch. The bats got going when they didn’t. That’s when Arkansas lost games. And you could argue they could have got going a little bit earlier on in Omaha, but when it came down to it. At the end of the final game, it wasn’t their bats that cost them the game it was something they’ve actually done better than their bats probably this season that’s their defense and they just made one too many errors, one too many weird things happened. Still bothers me a little bit. I told you guys I was over it. I, I don’t know fully if I am. I’ll be completely honest, but let’s move on. Offense. It was the best in the Dave Van Horn era. My second big thing, and speaking of best, it’s Viv Alloy. Two days ago he won the Golden Spikes Award. That’s the award for the best player in college baseball, and he was pretty worthy of it. And statistically as well, he put himself. Not on top, but in top 10 record book as far as Arkansas school history. Top 10 in hits, at bats, home runs, runs, and total bases. Probably the best out of those is home runs, 21 home runs, that’s 3rd all time in school history as far as individual season season records go. Now I feel like a lot of times I talk about Vhivoloy’s offense and the Hawaii native can can hit the ball like nobody else. He’s gonna be a first round draft pick and it’s gonna be fun to watch him play in the professionals in a year or two when he makes it to the MLB because he’s that good. But what might be better and what I think is better than his offense is his defense, is his fielding. I didn’t write down any fielding percentages or anything like that, but his fielding was exceptional this year. I think he had 9 errors in the 2 seasons that he played for Arkansas, which is really good, and he submitted himself as the best shortstop to ever play Arkansas baseball. And Arkansas has had some pretty good shortstops come along the way. The first one I think of as a young one is Casey Martin at 2020, 2021 season. I think he was really good. He struck out a lot. It’s funny when you say Case and Casey Martin, I think of strikeouts, but I also think of offensive firepower and sometimes I guess that’s how it is. The best offensive weapons have a lot of strikeouts. But then they make up for it with a lot of base hits. Casey Martin was really good. Vhivoloy, I think is better. I think he’s the best shortstop to ever play for the Razorbacks. My third thing, I know these first two have been positive, the best of the DVHR, the best hog shortstop. My third thing, and it’s not, it’s not, it’s not a negative thing I’m trying to put out into the atmosphere. It’s more me just putting everything in perspective now. Let’s zoom out and look at this season as a whole. Was this the best season ever for the Razorbacks? Was this the best season ever for Arkansas baseball? I think it’s top 5, maybe top 3. Now granted my wealth of Arkansas baseball knowledge kind of doesn’t go super far. I’m like 24, 23 years old, I’m gonna be 24 in a few weeks, doesn’t matter. So I don’t remember the days of, you know, them being really good in the 80s, in the 90s. So I do have bias when I say that this is a top three Arkansas baseball team. I’d love to maybe I’ll have someone on the show who can give me more of a, a wealth of knowledge from, from the past years of history. Maybe we can do that because we do have a couple more shows coming up this summer though. I don’t know what we’re gonna talk about exactly, probably from football and and basketball, maybe a little bit of baseball. But anyway, I think it’s a really good team. I don’t think it’s the best team of all time. And Obviously there’s recency bias to this, but the 2021 team had just as many wins and they did it in less games. They never lost an SEC series. Think about that. They never lost an SEC series. Arkansas lost like 4 of them this year, maybe 5. Didn’t lose a single conference series, won the SEC tournament title, I, I know that doesn’t matter that much. I think they won that won the outright regular season or maybe tied for and then won the tournament championship. Won their regional, had a great moment in their regional against Nebraska, and then just lost in the super regional to NC State, a team that made it far in Omaha or we’re going to make it far and then COVID, I think it maybe happened. Uh, it’s hard for me to remember that far back, but you know it’s a few years ago. I think the 2021 team was better, and I did just say they relied on their home runs more than this team did, and I know this team made it further. They made the semifinals, but I think when you look at. It’s tough. It’s tough. I think they’re both up there. I just think the 2021 team, I felt more confident in when I was watching their games that they were going to win and I think the biggest thing is that regular season and and winning every conference series. I know they didn’t make it past the super regionals. I know this Arkansas team this year did they swept their regional super regional, and then they obviously lost their first game in Omaha and won 2 and then lost 1. And they’re a really good team this season. I just think 2021’s team, I had more confidence in them. That was mainly because of Kevin Kops. I think he was like, you know, he won the Golden Spikes as well as Vhiva Alloy, but he was like the the I think the greatest like pitcher ever. To play for Arkansas baseball, whereas Vihiloy, the greatest shortstop, but like not the greatest player. Like he, he, he was amazing, don’t get me wrong, Vihi Oloy is one of the best players ever to play for the Razorbacks, but I think Kevin Kopps was another level. He was a freak. He was insanely good and had an insane season. Uh, maybe when you put the two seasons together, the Hevaloy might be better, but just this one season, Kevin Kols was better and the 2021 team was better. But that doesn’t take away from. The amazing season that this year was for the 2025 Razorbacks and it stinks the way it ended. It really does. And before we talk and we recap what this team is going to look like next year, I do wanna take a moment in case you haven’t heard this yet, in case you’ve been avoiding social media like my father because you’re a big Razorback fan, you don’t wanna process the emotions of a loss. This is what head coach Dave Van Horn had to say after the tough loss on Wednesday afternoon to LSU. Yeah, this is, uh, this is one of the most one of the top teams I’ve ever coached on and off the field, um, just being around them. You know, I, it’s funny, you know, I’ve been doing it for a while and people will say things to me like, You know, the kids have really changed over the years, and I always say, no, they haven’t. And this, they’re good. They, they just want, they just want to know that you care about them. And, uh, OK. Yeah, it’s tough, man. Kids are good, man. I love being around them. So I do it. Well, you can definitely tell there that this season meant a lot to head coach Dave Van Horn. He’s been doing it for 23 years now, and clearly you can tell that this team meant a lot to him and I just, I just gave my like takes and I, you know, I. What really matters is, is, is the kids, the players that play for for DVH and obviously head coach Dave Van Horn like he matters but you can tell he does it for those kids. I mean he said that that’s why he coaches is for those guys. So I just, I just think that’s a special moment and it was a really special season for Arkansas. All right, you can see we’re some are different. We’re over here at the big board normally I’m breaking down a bracket. Today I’m not. I’m talking about what this team looks like going forward now with my insanely good graphic skills, right? This is good, not that good, it’s not that good. I made this graphic, it’s not that good, but the point is for us to look at. This team this year and what it’s going to look like. In the future for next season. Now these are, I didn’t write down every single player, but most of the starters, including, uh, Nolan Nolan Souza because he started for most of the year before getting hurt and then every pitcher who pitched in conference play this season. Highlighted in red is the guys who are leaving for next year. Highlighted in green is the guys will be back. You got a few two yellows that are TBD. And now these are just, these are, these are predictions, um, most of them. I’m pretty sure on there’s a few I’m like, uh, you know, any, any of these guys who enter the transfer portal that I think are returning. So that just keep that in mind. And if you see a lot of red on here and you’re worried, don’t be because Arkansas will get a lot of the, a lot of guys from the transfer portal just like they did this season and they’re gonna be really good. So don’t worry about that. Let’s go, let’s go, uh, let’s go through them, uh, one by one quickly here. Got position players, got pitchers. We’ll start with the position position players. This is kind of the starting line up this season. You lose your first three guys. Charles Davilon had. Uh, incredibly good season. Like when we talk about Vhivo Loy, he was really good. Charles Davallo statistically had some better stats than Vhivoloy. He was, he was really good offensively this season. Now I know the way things ended, that doesn’t matter. He was really good this season and he’ll be 2nd round pick probably in the MLB draft is what I’ve been seeing. Vihi Oloy, obviously he’s gone, really good player. He’ll be a 1st round draft pick. Logan Maxwell, I’m not sure where he’ll be at in the draft. He’s out of college eligibility, so he’s an old man. Ryder Helford, Cam Kojo, Cohioloy. I expect all of them to return. They both all should be starters next season. Definitely Cam and Ryder will be back. Ryder Helfrich, the starting catcher was really good this season. If he has, if he continues to go in this upward trajectory that he’s been on from season 1 to season 2 now going season 3, I think he has the potential to be one of the best catchers in Arkansas history, and that’s saying something because there’s been a few, a few good ones that have, that have come along. Ryder Helford returning, Cam Kozel returning should be, uh, Cohio Alloy, I think he would, even though he was a DH, even though his fielding skills probably aren’t amazing. And even though he played pretty poorly down the stretch, I think he has a starting spot, so he’s not gonna leave. He’ll be returning Reese Robinette is TBD. There’s a few things to be worked out there, but you know, he he came on to the starting role late in the season, but he performed. Relatively well. He also could enter the portal. I could see that happening. Brent Iyerdale will go to the draft. Justin Thomas Junior, I think we’ll go to the draft. I put a question mark there if you can see. I think he will. um, it’s one of those things he could get drafted and maybe it’s not high enough he can come back. It’s very complicated. We talked about this with basketball a little bit. It’s a lot simpler than basketball. Baseball, it’s hard to wrap your mind around, so I’m not even gonna go into it. And you got Nolan Souza who played most of the year or half the year probably until getting hurt in that Georgia series and being out for the season. He should return, he should be the starting second baseman. Uh, starting in field that they might move him to shore. They might move Cam Kos short. There’s a lot of positive. Those guys returning as far as position players. They got obviously a lot of freshmen coming in and then in the transfer portal they’re gonna do a lot of work as well. Pitching wise, a little bit tougher, your top three guys kind of like hitting. Top 3 guys are out, are out of the lineup, or out of, um. Out of the roster and won’t be back next season because they’re that good. Zach Root, 1st round pick, maybe 2nd round. Gauge Wood, same with him. Obviously had a great performance in Omaha that. Really helped his draft dock it, it, it shot up very quickly after that no-hitter because he got put on the map. Landon Balcheese was OK this year. I think he’ll probably still get drafted and declare for the draft. He does have another year of eligibility or two, so he could come back. It’s possible. I think he’ll get drafted and there’ll be too much money there for him to say no. Gabe Gackle should return. Cole Gibler should return. You see all these returners down here that. Don’t matter quite as much as this guy as Gabe Gackle. If he can be the starter that people thought he was going to be this season, he’s gonna be really good and this team’s going to be really good. So hopefully he can provide that. If not, he’ll come out of the bullpen and he’ll be really effective like he was down the stretch this season for Arkansas. So Gackle is huge having him back, assuming these guys go into the transfer portal. Gackle won’t. Maybe some of these guys down here, you could see possibly entering the portal like a Tate McGuire, like a Colin Fisher. Um, maybe a Carson Wiggins, maybe. Um, so those are some of the guys returning and then you got some other guys entering the draft. I would expect Parker Coyle, Christian Fouch, Ben Bybe, um, most likely to enter, um, the, the MLB draft. They’ll get drafted. It’s just as far as like, will they get drafted high enough to where they choose to go play for that team, or do they want to come back to Arkansas, get some good NIL money and be a college student for another year? Like, I don’t know, it’s probably up to them. Um, but this is just my projections for some of them. Those are some of the ones up in there. These two are not up in the air. Like those guys will definitely get drafted and will definitely go to the MLB. These guys maybe might not, maybe not as much. Uh, Dylan Carter definitely will. He’s an old man as well. He’s run out run out of eligibility. So there’s luck. Your pitchers, your position players, what’s it look like for this year’s team? How’s it gonna look for next season? So we’ll, we might keep you updated throughout the next few weeks of the summer of what we’re looking at, the transfer portal acquisitions. We’ll probably bring this back in February, honestly, before the season starts and maybe fall ball so we get this. Do we get a feel of what does this team look like going into next season. I know people probably aren’t even thinking about next year, but it’s good for to be on our minds to see who do we have coming back as a Razorback fan, who you got coming back, and I think you got a lot of really good players coming back assuming they don’t enter the portal, which is always an option for a lot of these guys to do. All right, put a brief pause on the baseball talk. We don’t talk about NBA very often, but it felt very fitting to at least mention it in today’s show. The Oklahoma City Thunder winning Game 7 on Sunday night over the Indiana Pacers 103 to 91, the final score. The Thunder are your NBA champs. So that, that’s pretty cool. Shay Gildris Alexander, the MVP of the league with another really great. The game played every single minute, 29 points, had a couple of great 3 pointers in the third quarter to help them go on that run and win the game, but probably most cool, I guess, of this whole thing is that there are two former hogs. You see at the bottom of your screen. They didn’t play, they didn’t play much in these playoffs, but they played a lot in the regular season, especially Isaiah Joe. He was a big part of the Thunder being one of the most dominant teams in regular NBA basketball regular season history. Was Isaiah Joe Jalen Williams didn’t play quite as much, but if you’re a Hawk fan, you remember those guys. They were, they were razorbacks through and through just a few years ago, and they also Arkansans. They’re from, they both played at Northside High School basketball. It’s really cool to see two former Razorbacks, two Arkansans now crowned in. NBA champs hopefully we’ll get to hear from them later in the week on THV 11. All right, finishing up with my Luie’s look ahead. We just talked about the NBA Finals, and the finals just wrapped up. And of course a few days later is the NBA draft. You see the guy behind me, the only razorback that is expected to get picked. I don’t think there’s really anybody else, boogie Flann. Pulled his name out of the NBA draft. He transferred to to Florida, right? I think he transferred to Florida, or was that just a rumor? I think that did happen. There was a lot of craziness going on when that happened. He’s not getting drafted though. He definitely pulled his name out and he won’t be a razor back. He won’t be in the NBA, pretty sure he’s going to Florida. That’s a whole another thing. And then was there one other one, Carter Knox had originally entered the NBA draft, pulled his name, he’ll be back as a razorback. Aduhiro did not, so I guess he found out. He’s gonna get paid a good amount, so he’s gonna stay in the NBA draft, which you don’t blame him, right? It’s a, it’s a, it’s a money game sometimes. So Aduhiro will get drafted on Wednesday night. That is when the NBA draft is. He is projected as an early 2nd round pick, possibly. He could go late 1st round, possibly could get bounced to late 2nd round. I do expect that he will get picked, but we’ll be exciting to see another Razorback playing NBA ball. We’ll get to see him play summer ball this season, which will give us something to talk about here on Ludy’s Look Back and on our newscast for TH 11. All right, that is gonna do it for another episode of Luie’s Look Back. Thank you all so much for watching. It’s been a fun one, a lot of baseball talk wrapping up the season and getting ready for next year. Remember, I know the way things ended weren’t weren’t fun for the Razorbacks, but there’s no doubt I really. Good season and something that fans should be excited for going into next year. I know that’s hard at this point to be excited after a really disappointing way to end the year, uh, but there’s, there’s optimism. There’s optimism. There always is because it’s one of the best programs in college baseball. I know that one day they’re gonna win it all. It’s a matter of time. It has to happen, right? There’s no curse, right? Hopefully not. All right, thanks so much for watching Luie’s Look Back. We’ll see you same time, same place next week.