Analyzing Arkansas' 2007-08 season leads to a feeling of deja vu.

You get the impression you have been here before, say 2006-07, for instance.

Yes, these Razorbacks won two more games, finishing 23-12 to last season's 21-14 ledger, finished in second place in the SEC Western Division (over a tie for third a year ago), and won a game in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999 (instead of losing in the first round again).

Yet with this team, as with the year before, there is a feeling that this team's full potential never really was tapped, that though John Pelphrey did a credible job in his first season as coach, these Razorbacks weren't a whole lot different from the ones who came up short of expectations last year and got Stan Heath fired.

Despite the return of every starter from the year before, these Razorbacks lost nonconference games to a below-average Providence and to Appalachian State in December, lost to a weak South Carolina team at home and to Georgia by 13 points in the regular season, went only 2-6 on the road in the SEC, then -- in the championship game of the SEC tourney -- couldn't beat a Georgia team that had played not one but two games the day before.

These Razorbacks were good enough to go out and post a double-digit victory over Indiana in the NCAA Tournament, and flawed enough to lose by 31 points to North Carolina two days later.

They were, to quote Winston Churchill, "an enigma, wrapped in a puzzle, shrouded in mystery."

But at least Pelphrey won't have to be concerned about trying to figure these guys next season. Four of the top five scorers are gone along with four senior starters.

The 2008-09 Hogs will have Patrick Beverley back along with part-time starter Stefan Welsh, but there will be a lot of reconstruction work to be done.

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