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FAYETTEVILLE — Unlike most coaches, Eric Musselman doesn’t pretend to ignore how his team is perceived by the media.

The first-year coach says he listens to comments and reads articles about Arkansas, even posting some that overlook the Razorbacks as contenders in the SEC. Not surprisingly, Musselman was well aware of the media picking them to finish 11th out of 14 teams in its preseason poll.

Coming off a win at Indiana that improved it to 11-1 to close out the main portion of non-conference play, Arkansas appears primed to outperform its preseason projection - even though its coach is downplaying what it’s done so far.

“This is when they said we’d be 11th, not through the first group of games that we’re at right now, so we haven’t proven anything,” Musselman said. “Maybe the media’s going to be geniuses and that’s where we’ll fall, but we thank everybody for the extra motivation, certainly.”

One thing he hasn’t discussed with his team, though, is the Razorbacks’ perceived “lack of respect” in the national rankings. Despite being No. 24 in the NET ratings used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee, Arkansas is only receiving votes in the AP and Coaches polls - 19 votes for 34th in the former and 14 votes to be tied for 35th in the latter.