Highly anticipated second season under Musselman set to start Wednesday
After an impressive debut season which included exceeded expectations and a conference player of the year, second-year coach Eric Musselman looks to continue to build off that success.
The Razorback roster returns only a couple of familiar faces in Ethan Henderson and Desi Sills. No other player on the team has played a single minute in an official game in a Razorback uniform. With ten newcomers, there have been questions of the chemistry the team might have to start the season.
“We’ve got so many new faces. We haven’t played a game. We’ve got to figure out who we are,” Head Coach Eric Musselman said. “That’s a really, really important factor for us right now.”
Chemistry and identity will be a work in progress to begin the season, but effort is already at the Razorback standard.
“[W]e had our most spirited practice today,” Musselman said. “I think that they’re excited to play, man. I mean, there’s no doubt they’re hungry for other competition… they’re spirited, they’re hungry, they want to compete. It’s upon us. Now it’s just about going out and trying to produce.
Transfers Connor Vanover, J.D. Notae, and Abayomi Iyiola all sat out last year and watched as the Hogs went 20-12 (7-11) before the season was cut short in the midst of the SEC Tournament. Along with Sills and Henderson, the five come into this season remembering how close they were to making the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018. No current player was on that roster.
In March, an emotional Musselman addressed the Arkansas team to let the team know their season was over.
“(Anthony) Ruta and I study those numbers, if we would’ve won tonight, we probably would’ve been in,” Musselman said as he choked back tears. The Razorbacks’ game against South Carolina that night, along with games across all of college basketball, was canceled due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Two players from that roster signed NBA contracts. Others transferred or graduated. After all the offseason movements settled, the Razorback staff filled the roster with four in-state freshmen, three sit-out transfers, two returning players, and three graduate transfers.
There is a healthy balance of youth and experience, from Moses Moody being touted as potentially the program’s first one-and-done prospect, to Vance Jackson, who will finish his collegiate career at his third university.
Looking at the difference in this year’s roster compared to last year’s, the roster makeup was clearly intentional.
Adrio Bailey was the Razorbacks’ starting center for most of last year at 6-foot-6. Of the ten newcomers this year, six are that height or taller, with the tallest being Vanover at 7-foot-3.
In addition to the new players and new-found size, the Razorback staff welcome Associate Head Coach David Patrick to Fayetteville.
Patrick, who was formerly an assistant with Musselman at LSU, worked with two seven-footers at UC-Riverside this past season and coached one of the best scoring defenses in the country. The hire was considered by national media to be one of the best of the offseason. Patrick brings head coaching experience, recruiting expertise, and is familiar with Musselman and his philosophy.
Fans got a taste of that philosophy last season, as the departed Mason Jones and Isaiah Joe scored in droves and had the freedom to do so. The extent to which those two scored, though, had just as much to do with the lack of depth last year as it did the freedom in the system.
With this year’s roster having so much more depth, there will likely not be one, let alone two players consistently scoring 20+ points per game. Musselman touched on that in his press conference Monday heading into the season opener.
“If we had a really strong bench last year, Mason Jones probably would not have had the year that he had just based on freedom,” Musselman said. “I mean, in huddles, I would tell him, ‘Hey man, freestyle. Go get us a shot.’”
Jones was the type of player that could go and make that happen, and was rewarded for doing so by being named the SEC Co-Player of the Year. One other question mark Musselman has expressed about this current team is the lack of a “go-to” scorer like Jones was last year.
Despite there not necessarily being a proven “go-to” guy yet, there are plenty of players who have the ability to score on this roster who could take over that role any night.
One stigma that followed Musselman from Nevada was that he never played more than seven or eight players. That was the case last season with the lack of depth, but there is no set number of players Musselman aims to play.
Musselman said, “I don’t really have a set number because I kind of think the players are really going to dictate based on productivity on who plays.” He continued with a statement that reinforced the freedom his players play with.
“When I had Gilbert Arenas, Gilbert knew that he was going to play through mistakes as a young player and he played with freedom and he played with confidence. Jason Richardson did, those two guys in particular that were young players that played for me with the warriors.”
That sentiment is especially significant considering the Razorbacks just signed a top-ten recruiting class made entirely of high-profile in-state prospects who look to play early.
As fans have speculated starting lineups on social media all offseason, each freshman has made an appearance in countless of those lists. The fans wishes don't mean much to the staff, but it shows the expectations the fanbase has for its young, homegrown talent.
As of Friday, though, Musselman was still unsure of who was going to start the first game of the year.
Musselman said, “Here we are on Friday and we still don’t know who we’ll start. Still going through different roles and rotations and so on and so forth.”
The main questions surrounding the rotations seem to be: how many and which freshmen will start and what role will Desi Sills play?
Sills was the sole All-SEC selection from the team, being selected second team All-SEC by the coaches. He performed strongly off the bench the latter part of his freshman year and played well in both a starting role and a sixth man role last season.
“There's no doubt that he was really effective coming off the bench," Musselman said. "I thought he got to observe the flow of the game and came in and gave us some instant punch. Having said that, I think he wants to start.”
The roster this year is more talented than any Razorback roster arguably since the 2008 season. Musselman has a tough job ahead of him in setting rotations, starters, and allocating minutes, but that’s a good problem to have.
The head hog has proven that the same five will not start every game, and that a lot of the rotations and lineups have to do with matchups and recent performance.
Looking ahead to Musselman’s second season, there is ample reason for fans to be excited and there's definitely talent enough to be a tournament caliber team but with so much uncertainty, the Razorbacks sit at No. 6 in the SEC media's preseason poll. We'll see how they measure up to those expectations.
Arkansas's home opener versus Mississippi Valley State is set for a 6:30 p.m. tipoff in Bud Walton Wednesday, streamed on SEC Network Plus.
Jackson's Projected Starters
Jalen Tate
Desi Sills
Moses Moody
Vance Jackson
Justin Smith
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