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basketball Edit

Hogs working to finalize new hoops schedule

Freshman Jaylin Williams gazing upon Arkansas hoops' biggest accomplishments.
Freshman Jaylin Williams gazing upon Arkansas hoops' biggest accomplishments. (Arkansas Athletics)

The Razorbacks had their 2020-21 schedule almost finalized a few months ago, complete with a multi-team event in Las Vegas, but now, everything's changed. It's created a bit of a hassle for Arkansas Director of Operations Anthony Ruta who's in charge of scheduling a perfectly balanced and strong slate.

"The guy that does our scheduling, Anthony Ruta, is close to being bald," Musselman joked with the media on the first day of practice Wednesday. "Well now he’s got no hair, basically, because he had the schedule done. He was all proud of what we had put together, and then obviously with the COVID stuff, he’s had to twist and turn, change and, quite frankly, it’s been a nightmare for him. I’ve slept like a baby because I put all the pressure on him."

Scheduling is not just about making sure you have the right number of games, home and away games. Strength of schedule is a major component for making it into the NCAA tournament and Ruta has prided himself on putting together schedules that hit the sweet spot.

"You're trying to get teams that are going to finish in the top three or four in their leagues and have an opportunity to win 20 games," Ruta said.

The SEC moved up conference play to begin Dec. 29 or 30. That will begin a window of 20 possible game dates for an 18-game schedule with two open dates.

For 10 schools, one of those open dates will be filled with the Big 12/SEC Challenge, which is reportedly being targeted for Jan. 30. Arkansas is expected to participate in the challenge.

The other open date will allow for some wiggle room should games need to be postponed because of COVID-19.

On top of the shift to the SEC play window, Arkansas has had to negotiate or renegotiate contracts with non-conference programs they were originally scheduled to play.

Before the pandemic forced the schedule to be modified, the Razorbacks were set to play Oral Roberts, Tulsa (on the road), Northern Illinois, UT-Arlington, Lipscomb, Oklahoma (in Tulsa), Old Dominion (in North Little Rock) and Abilene Christian.

With the pandemic still raging in the U.S., Musselman wants to do everything possible to make sure Arkansas gets in all 27 games this season, even if that means sticking around closer to home.

"I don’t know how you’re going to judge strength of schedule if people have different number of games played. So we tried to come up with a geographical plan that will help from a scheduling standpoint. Quite frankly, we want to try to keep our guys in our own space, so to speak, so that we can play as many games as possible. So maybe that limits our travel non-conference."

We don't yet know who will remain on Arkansas's slate this season but we do know they won't be playing in North Little Rock this year. HawgBeat confirmed original reporting from Trey Schaap that the Razorbacks, due to limited fan attendance policy and the lacking cable infrastructure to televise games, won't play in the state capitol.

As far as the cancelled multi-team event goes, Arkansas could join a bubble being created at another campus or perhaps organize their own.

Ruta's process for finding the perfect matchups takes a lot of research and film, so it's not clear close or far we are from getting the new schedule. Non-conference play is set to begin across the nation on November 25.

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