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FAYETTEVILLE — One thing Eric Musselman has learned in the last few months is that schedules - in the pandemic year of 2020 - are written in pencil instead of pen.
Shortly after Saturday’s postgame press conference following Arkansas’ win over Lipscomb, the second-year coach was informed by director of basketball operations and scheduling guru Anthony Ruta that Tulsa had COVID-19 issues and wouldn’t be able to host the Razorbacks on Tuesday.
What followed was roughly 48 hours of chaos as Musselman and his staff hit the phones and started reaching out to contacts in an effort to find a replacement game.
Arkansas talked to two or three teams, as well as the other three in-state Division I programs not currently on the schedule, before announcing - just before 6 p.m. Monday - a home game against Southern set for 7 p.m. CT Wednesday.
Fans were hopeful the Razorbacks might add Little Rock or another quality opponent to take the place of Tulsa - a top-100 KenPom team - so many were critical when they landed on another team from the SWAC that is No. 266 on KenPom.
However, Musselman stressed to reporters Tuesday that his staff was “aggressive” and “not passive” in the search for a game, but it proved rather difficult to iron out the details.
“People have no clue about what’s available, about what protocol with testing, about how teams would get to a certain place, about which teams really want to play,” Musselman said. “I can tell you, for sure, from the moment our game ended until the game was scheduled…there was a lot of zig-zagging… There’s just a lot of things with a whole bunch of people that we reached out to.”
Ultimately, the connections Musselman and his assistants have with the Jaguars made the game possible.
In 2016, Southern head coach Sean Woods was the head coach at Morehead State when it lost to Musselman and Nevada in the CBI Championship. Two years later, he was hired to be an assistant at Stetson by current Arkansas assistant Corey Williams.
It also helped that David Patrick, another Arkansas assistant, is a longtime friend of Southern athletics director Roman Banks, even going as far as to describe him as a “big brother in the business.”
“Their coach is competitive, tough-minded,” Musselman said. “I competed against him before in the CBI championship. His teams are always really well prepared, so we do feel fortunate. There were some relationships with people at Southern that helped us put this thing together.”
Although the Jaguars were picked to finish second in the SWAC by the conference’s head coaches and sports information directors, they come from a conference that the Razorbacks have traditionally dominated.
In fact, Arkansas is 47-0 all-time against teams currently in the SWAC, winning by an average margin of 30.3 points. That includes a 142-62 shellacking of Mississippi Valley State in the season opener last month.
That does not matter to Musselman this year, though. Instead, his No. 1 goal is to play the maximum number of non-conference games possible. He wants to reward his players with games and allow them to showcase their skills, all while continuing to bond and come together as a team.
Other teams haven’t been so lucky. SEC rival Ole Miss is one of 55 Division I teams - out of 356 total - who had not played a single game entering Tuesday.
“With a lot of new faces, my philosophy - our staff’s (philosophy) - is how do we get the student-athletes to play the full non-conference schedule,” Musselman said. “There are teams right now in our own league that have not played a game. We’re going into our fifth game here in 24 hours.”
Of course, adding an opponent to the schedule with only about 48 hours notice does present a few challenges for Arkansas’ coaching staff.
A group that prides itself on extreme preparation, the Razorbacks usually start coming up with their game plan for a Tuesday or Wednesday game on Sunday night. That obviously didn’t happen this week, as they were busy looking for a game.
It wasn’t until Tuesday afternoon’s practice that the team finally started prep on Southern.
In a way, it could simulate a tournament situation, such as the NCAA or SEC Tournament, but it’s still not quite the same.
“Even in those situations, you see brackets and an assistant coach can be working on (the potential opponent),” Musselman said. “This was unlike any bracket-type situation where you knew it was going to be Team A or Team B. This was a little bit more wild.”
What makes losing the Tulsa game particularly tough is that it was going to be the Razorbacks’ lone road game before beginning SEC play at Auburn on Dec. 30.
According to HogStats.com, it will be the first time Arkansas didn’t leave the state for a non-conference game before the start of conference play since the 1928-29 season. However, Musselman once again reiterated that isn’t at the top of his priority list.
“Quite frankly, we’re not in a normal world,” Musselman said. “I’m not concerned about playing a road game in non-conference. I’m concerned about trying to get our guys competition, get our guys to be able to compete, so this is how the schedule works out thus far.”
Tulsa and Arkansas are officially listing the game - which was supposed to be the return game for a home-and-home that started last year - as postponed instead of canceled, but it can’t be played this year unless the Razorbacks have another cancellation because their schedule is already at the 27-game maximum.
Asked if playing the Golden Hurricane later in the year would be a possibility if a similar issue arises again, Musselman said he didn’t want to comment on it because of the “fluidity” of the situation.
As cliche as it sounds, the Arkansas coach is truly focused on one day and one game at a time.
Musselman isn’t sure how the selection committee will handle strength of schedule and comparing teams who’ve played vastly different number of games when March rolls around, but he is certain he wanted to get his team a game for this week and didn’t care who it was against.
“Bottom line, the last thing those guys wanted is to not get a game Wednesday and have to go through another day of practice with me,” Musselman said. “They're happy to get a game in, I promise you that."