FAYETTEVILLE -- The University of Arkansas women's track and field team, which won the national indoor championship last year, is No. 1 in the first coaches' poll of the season released earlier this week.
"It's nice that they read the results from last year's national meet," Razorbacks women's Coach Lance Harter said. "I think that's where they come to the basis of, 'Well, they were first last year. We'll make them first again this year.' "
The voters also no doubt took into account Arkansas has 13 marks ranking among the top 10 on the indoor season's collegiate list, including No. 1 spots for Nastassja Campbell in the pole vault and Shafiqua Maloney in the 800 meters.
"We do have a lot of returners and we have some momentum for indoors," Harter said. "But it might be way premature to put us in that [No. 1] position considering we really haven't seen what the rest of the nation has to offer."
Arkansas' women's and men's teams will get a good look at what teams from all over the nation have to offer at this weekend's Razorback Invitational, which begins today in the Randal Tyson Center.
All of the Power 5 conferences will be represented with a field that includes Arkansas' SEC rivals LSU, Georgia, Mississippi State and Missouri; Oregon, Southern California and Stanford from the Pac-12; Iowa State and Oklahoma State from the Big 12; Iowa from the Big Ten; and Pittsburgh from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"We're going to walk right into the fire," Harter said. "It's going to be kind of a who's who of track and field.
"The results from this weekend should impact the national lists tremendously."
Arkansas' men's team isn't ranked, but that figures to change after this weekend when the Razorbacks have more of their top athletes competing.
"We don't have a lot of marks," Arkansas men's Coach Chris Bucknam said. "We have a lot of good athletes that haven't competed yet by design. We'll compete this weekend and hopefully we'll get [ranked]."
Events begin at 11:45 a.m. today with the men's heptathlon. The women's pentathlon starts at 12:10 p.m. Field events start at 2 p.m. and running events at 5:50 p.m.
Saturday's schedule starts at 11 a.m. with running events and with field events at 1 p.m.
Among the top events for the Arkansas women will be at 7 tonight with the distance medley relay featuring four All-Americans in Krissy Gear, Paris Peoples, Maloney and Lauren Gregory.
"There's a lot of star power coming in to try post marks that will hopefully sustain all the way through the indoor season to get to the national meet," Harter said. "Oregon, Oklahoma State, Stanford, and ourselves are loading it up to really try to make a statement."
Ayden Owens, a transfer from Michigan who took third in heptathlon at the NCAA Championships last year, will make his debut for the Arkansas men's team today. Also competing in the heptathlon for the Razorbacks will be Etamar Bhastekar and Daniel Spejcher.
"I'm thrilled with the teams we're hosting," Bucknam said. "This is just a great field to put together this time of year.
"It's a destination facility and teams know we run it right with our great officials."
Bucknam was asked if there are certain events he has circled.
"I have every event circled this weekend," Bucknam said. "I'm talking everything from the 60-meter hurdles to the heptathlon, where we have some special talents competing.
"The one event we won't be competing in [tonight] is the distance medley relay, which we will do down the road."