Dave Van Horn discusses the importance of the Transfer Portal

Building a successful collegiate baseball team — especially in 2025 — depends heavily on hitting or missing in the transfer portal. If you were to look at the rosters of many of the great teams in the NCAA this season, you’re more than likely looking at a mass influx of heavily producing transfers. This is no different for the Arkansas program, which is riding portal players to another College World Series appearance.

Head coach Dave Van Horn is making his eighth trip to Omaha as the Razorbacks’ head coach. He discussed the importance of the transfer portal at Thursday’s Men’s College World Series Media Day Press Conference.

“First off, as a coach, you’ve got to get the right players,” Van Horn said. “Yeah, the talent’s out there and the experience, but you’ve got to get the right ones. You’ve got to get the right ones that really care. Quick story. [Zach] Root pitches [last] Saturday [against Tennessee]. We won 4-3. Sunday, we get out to a good lead and we’re going to win the game. We’ve just got to get it over with. Our guys, they celebrate a little bit. Zach Root, he has tears flowing. I mean, that kid, that’s beautiful. That’s what you want, you want guys that buy in that they want to go.”

This season’s Razorback team has been forged from the portal. Key players DH Kuhio Aloy (BYU), shortstop Wehiwa Aloy (Sacramento State), left-handed pitcher Zach Root (East Carolina), outfielder Logan Maxwell (TCU), outfielder Charles Davalan (Florida Gulf Coast), first baseman Cam Kozeal (Vanderbilt) and right-handed pitcher Aiden Jimenez (Oregon State) made their way to Arkansas from other Division I programs.

Arkansas hit a home run in transfer portal

“The transfer portal is tough,” Van Horn continued. “I have mixed emotions on it. First off, as a coach, you recruit a kid. You’d like to keep them in your program, play some as a freshman, probably start as a sophomore, big-time player as a junior, signs a contract. That’s the way it used to be. In our league, most of the leagues now, they’re old. They’re old. Hard to play as a freshman. You’ve got good freshmen that go to other schools, smaller schools, they get it right and then we get them.”

“And, yeah, it’s very difficult, but this is the way I talked to our coaches about it four years ago. We’ve either got to embrace it or we need to get a different job. And that’s what we did. We said, okay, these are the rules, that is what we’ve got to do. That’s what we did.”

Arkansas‘ transfer portal haul hasn’t just been good, it’s been great. Wehiwa Aloy was named the 2025 SEC Player of the Year and is a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award, Keihiwa Aloy, Davalan and Root were named First Team All-SEC selections and Kozeal was named a Second Team All-SEC selection.

Although this team was forged together from programs all across the country, they are just a few wins away from earning the first National Championship in the storied history of the Arkansas baseball program. The Razorbacks open play in the Men’s College World Series on Friday at 6 p.m. CT/7 p.m. ET against fellow SEC foe LSU. The Tigers won the regular season series between the two programs in May.