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In six years as a college coach, Eric Musselman has never had a team share the basketball as well as Arkansas did Tuesday night.
Although their 17 assists were barely among their top five totals in just SEC play, the Razorbacks passed the ball 154 times in the first half and 305 times total during their 101-73 beatdown of South Carolina.
The second-year coach typically has a target of at least 200 passes in a game and said afterward that he doesn’t remember a team ever cracking the 300 mark since he joined the college ranks.
“Our chemistry right now is phenomenal,” Musselman said. “The guys really, really enjoy playing with each other. They understand their roles. They are playing really, really unselfish.”
That ball movement led to a lot of open looks. Arkansas made 10 of 20 three-pointers in the first half and finished the game 15 of 33 from beyond the arc. It was the second-most three-pointers it’s ever made in an SEC road game, according to HogStats.
The Razorbacks also shot 55.2 percent overall despite only 12 of their 67 attempts being layups or dunks and scored on more than half of their possessions.
“I think the interior of South Carolina’s really physical, so I think naturally our guys felt if we could swing the zone and make the ball change sides of the floor that we would get some open looks,” Musselman said. “And I thought we did a great job sharing it.”
Here are a few other tidbits and stats from Arkansas’ dominant win over the Gamecocks…
Musselman Milestones
Tuesday’s win was the 150th of Musselman’s career, with 110 coming in his four years at Nevada and now 40 at Arkansas.
He reached that milestone in his 201st game, giving him a career winning percentage of .746, which ranks sixth among active DI head coaches in at least their sixth season. The only coaches ahead of him are Gonzaga’s Mark Few (.834), North Carolina’s Roy Williams (.775), Kentucky’s John Calipari (.771), Kansas’ Bill Self (.766) and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (.764). He’s just ahead of Iona’s Rick Pitino (.738) and Arizona’s Sean Miller (.730).
Perhaps a bigger deal to him, though, was that the South Carolina win continued his streak of 20-win seasons. Musselman has reached that mark in each of his six seasons and he’s the first Arkansas coach to do it in his first two seasons with the Razorbacks.
