UA indoor teams have test in SEC

FAYETTEVILLE — Long before there was an SEC Network and its slogan, Arkansas’ men’s and women’s track and field programs proved “in the SEC it just means more.”

With a combined 43 recognized national championships won and so many national championships in cross country, indoor and outdoor track during the era of retired men’s coach John McDonnell and ongoing with women’s Coach Lance Harter and men’s Coach Chris Bucknam, no meet means more than winning the SEC.

The No. 2- ranked men’s and women’s Arkansas teams are on course to repeat their 20152016 SEC cross country- indoor track-outdoor track triple crowns and are favored to win their SEC indoor championships Friday and Saturday in Nashville, Tenn.

The NCAA indoor looms in College Station, Texas, just two weekends after this SEC meet.

Neither Bucknam nor Harter will hold back.

“It’s all hands on deck,” Bucknam said.

Some schools eschew the scholarship splitting required for depth to win conference track championships and invest full scholarships in those they believe can score nationally.

They may load for NCAA cross country then token compete in track, or quality stack just a few track or field events.

Arkansas strives balancing quality and quantity.

“It’s always a conundrum,” Bucknam said. “But at the end of the day the SEC Championships are written in stone. We will always run to win that meet. That’s what my predecessor did and that’s what we are doing. It means a great deal to us.”

It will always be hard, regardless how easy Arkansas sometimes makes it look.

Today’s national indoor rankings reflect a typical SEC field. Nationally ranked SEC men’s teams are Florida, Arkansas, Georgia, Texas A&M, LSU, Alabama and Tennessee at first, second, fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth and 12th.

Among SEC indoor women’s teams, Arkansas nationally ranks second; Georgia, third; LSU, fourth; Kentucky, sixth; Alabama, ninth; Texas A&M, 10th; Florida, 11th; and Ole Miss, 13th.

“It’s a meat grinder type of meet in the greatest league in the country,” Bucknam said.

And it can grind a team with the NCAA indoor remaining.

Oregon, also running for national championships year round, doesn’t sweat a Pacific-12 indoor facsimile.

“The Pac-12 doesn’t have an indoor conference meet,” Harter said. “They deliberately vote it down because it gives them the flexibility to call their conference meet the MPSF [Mountain Pacific Sports Federation], which is just a conglomeration to make it a last chance meet. Now could we do the same thing? Sure. But in the SEC a SEC title is very sacred.”

And nationally noted, Harter said relaying a comment by retired longtime Notre Dame Coach Joe Piane.

“Joe Piane said, ‘One of these days, I want to come to Arkansas and watch a SEC indoor championship. Because from everything I’ve heard, it might be the best meet in the United States,” Harter said he was told. “And I think he’s probably right. The quality and talent, the head-to-head competition, and the fervor of all the schools, it’s very, very special.”