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FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas was short-handed when it hit the practice floor Tuesday afternoon.
By the time the Razorbacks got through their first official practice of preseason camp, they were down to just 10 available players and even one of them was hobbled late in the workout.
Head coach Eric Musselman was clearly frustrated with the injuries, none of which appear to be serious, and ended the practice by stressing to his team the importance of taking care of their bodies with ice baths and treatments.
The lack of numbers is going to force the third-year coach to tweak how he approaches camp leading up to the Nov. 9 opener against Mercer.
“The last 10 days we’ve just had a lot of unfortunate, small injuries, that this next couple of weeks is going to set us back a little bit as far as the way we normally prepared over the last seven years of college,” Musselman said. “So I’m going to have to scale back some of the stuff that we do in preparation, probably throughout the first two and a half weeks of October.”
Most notably, big man Jaylin Williams - who started five games as a freshman - has reaggravated an old ankle injury and is taking it slow. He was not dressed out for Tuesday’s practice and instead served as a rebounder during shooting drills and watched from the sideline.
Musselman said he expects him to return to action soon - probably not in the next 10 days, but soon after that.
Another player who didn’t dress out Tuesday was Wichita State transfer Trey Wade. He is recovering from a tendon injury in his knee that will keep him out 4-6 weeks, but luckily won’t require surgery.
Although he participated in some defensive drills, KK Robinson didn’t do much as he continues to work his way back from foot surgery that ended his freshman season midway through the year.
“KK has continued to have soreness working back into activity,” Musselman said. “The bone he had surgery on is fine, but he’s missed a really good portion of what we’ve done over the last 12 weeks or whatever.”
Pittsburgh transfer Au’Diese Toney was dressed out and at practice, but spent most of the media viewing period off to the side with a trainer. Musselman said he’s dealing with soreness in his knee.
Late in the practice, reigning SEC Sixth Man of the Year JD Notae was hobbled with an ankle injury.
If neither Toney nor Notae are able to go, that leaves Arkansas with just nine players on its roster for practice and that includes a pair of walk-ons. Figuring out how to have quality practices with limited numbers is the “million-dollar question,” Musselman said, and one he’ll lean on his staff to figure out.
“I think one of the great things of having Gus, who was with us at Nevada when we did have a few injuries, (is) we can look back on that time,” Musselman said. “I think certainly with Clay and Coach Smart, because of their NBA background, there is a pace to how you want to do this thing, too.
“I want to go 100 mph every single day, but we are going to have to be really smart how we go through these next three weeks.”
