Emotional scene

Immediately after Arkansas beat Wichita State, the Razorbacks ran to Todd Barbour and embraced the team’s strength and conditioning coach.

Barbour was hospitalized on Thursday night because of an undisclosed medical reason, but he was well enough to attend Sunday’s game.

“This is one big family, and Todd’s part of our family,” Arkansas Coach Courtney Deifel said, fighting back tears. “If one of us needs the other, we’re there for him.

“For Todd to come and support our girls, he has such a big hand in what this program is doing and what it’s done. The girls have a tremendous amount of respect and love for him.

“I think it speaks to their character the first thing they wanted to go do is embrace Todd and show support for him because he shows support for them.”

The Razorbacks also got emotional talking about Barbour.

“You can’t even put into words how much he means to us,” freshman outfielder Hannah McEwen said. “You can see how important it is to him as well.”

Senior third baseman Autumn Buczek said the Razorbacks wouldn’t be where they are without Barbour.

“He makes us better people and better athletes every single day,” Buczek said. “He pushes us way way beyond what we can imagine we can do in our weight room and preseason workouts. Having that person believing in you is a huge reason we’ve been successful, so a big shoutout for Todd for being here.”