Musselman on this year's Hogs: 'There’s no traits that our past teams had'
After the Lipscomb Bisons cut Arkansas' lead to four with just over a minute to play in the first half on Saturday evening, the Razorbacks managed to pull away a bit and take a 41-33 lead into the halftime locker room to ease the crowd of over 16,000 at Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock.
Led by fifth-year head coach Eric Musselman, the Hoop Hogs went up by as much as 20 points with 12 minutes to play in the second half and all seemed right in the world. Just when it seemed like Arkansas was going to ease its way to victory, Lipscomb came storming back.
By the under-8 minute media timeout, the Bisons had cut the Arkansas lead to nine points. Lipscomb's run grew to as much as 17-0, yet it was never able to capture the lead over the Hogs. The Bisons cut it to a 1-point deficit on three occasions with less the five minutes to play.
"First of all, in the past we’ve done a really good job of milking the shot clock when we get up like that," Musselman said. "A lot of people don’t understand it. Tonight’s a great example of why you do it.
"I let them play. Should have clock-managed better. Again, you think with a veteran team you’ll be able to get good shots on goal. That wasn’t the case tonight. Got to get a lot better in so many areas."
Arkansas shot 52.6% from the field, 33.3% from three and it won the battle on the boards, 35-34. The Razorbacks had 46 bench points (13 players saw the floor), 36 points in the paint, 17 assists and they led for more than 37 minutes of the game.
"Normally people are telling us we need to play more," Musselman said. "Now we're playing more and we're getting asked questions should we play less. We're trying to figure out who we are. Plain and simple.
"We're trying to figure out who we can rely on on a nightly basis. Who plays with consistency? Who can react to loose balls? Who can defensive rebound? Who can keep the ball in front of them? There's a lot of things we are searching for."
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Most would want to celebrate after a win, but Musselman's squad is now just 7-4 on the year and he knows that a narrow victory over a team like Lipscomb does nothing but hurt Arkansas' NET ranking. The Razorbacks just moved up to No. 99 in the rankings prior to Saturdays game, but they could move back below 100 after Saturday's game.
While being below 100 in the NET rankings is pretty new territory, Musselman is no stranger to bad stretches during his time as head coach at Arkansas.
The Razorbacks started SEC play with a 1-5 record last season and ended it on an 0-3 stretch. The year before that, they started conference play with three straight losses. Go back another year, and there was a stretch where Arkansas lost four of five.
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It could be easy to say that this is another classic rough patch for a Musselman-coached squad, but the Head Hog said this year's team is different. Obviously you can't compare teams that have different rosters, but you also can't assume Musselman can work the same turnaround magic he has in the past.
"Every team has got its own personality," Musselman said. "I’m not going to have dinner with Bryan [Hunt] and Danyelle (Musselman) and say, ‘Hey, we’ll be all right. We’ll figure it out.’ I’m not under that mindset just because it’s happened in the past. We’ve got to play better in so many different areas.
"We’ll keep coaching and then hopefully you get some execution on the floor. But yeah, I don’t think the narrative of, ‘It’s happened in the past,’ … We played really good basketball against Purdue in an exhibition game. We played really good basketball against Duke. And then we’ve got to get better in all the other games."
Musselman was asked a follow up to clarify if this year's squad is anything like any of his previous four seasons in Fayetteville.
"No," Musselman said. "No. Yeah, completely different. Yep. There’s no traits that our past teams had."
Arkansas now ranks 54th overall on KenPom and the Hogs are 63rd in offensive efficiency. With just two more non conference games to go before SEC play starts, the Razorbacks don't have much time to get things figured out.
"I mean I’m always confident in my team going against anybody," guard Tramon Mark said after the Lipscomb game. "Whether we’re struggling or not struggling, these are my guys. Most of us are transfers, but the guys that have been here, they tell us what we need to do and we go out there and try and do it. Like I said, I’m always confident in my team and whatever we need to do to win a basketball game."
Mark scored a team-high 17 points on 6-12 shooting from the field. He also added three rebounds, three assists and one block in 31 minutes. He will be a key part of a rotation that is sure to look different for Thursday's matchup against Abilene Christian, which will tipoff at 6 p.m. CT on the SEC Network inside Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville.