Whether it’s rising up from the dead like WWE legend The Undertaker to depict the team’s NCAA Tournament hopes, or using mini toilets to “flush away” a bad game, Arkansas Head Coach Eric Musselman has found all sorts of ways to keep his players motivated and focused.

“I have probably four-to-five books in the office, and we keep adding to it every single day of ideas," Musselman said. "And usually we come up with three or four a week, and 90% of them get thrown away because we only need 30 per year, 27 this year. But yeah, I have fun with it.”

The inspiration for the Head Hog's pregame shenanigans come from all sorts of realms: from sports entertainment legends to a standard home pest. These ideas may seem far-fetched or cheesy to those outside the Arkansas program, but the coaches and players not only welcome these creative approaches, they take them seriously, despite their lighthearted manner on social media.

“The pregame stuff we take really seriously. It's our last opportunity to get a theme for that particular night," Musselman shared.

Even though the team takes these messages seriously, they also serve as a reminder to have a little fun.

“I thought that [the starting gate] was really good," senior Justin Smith said." In a way, it brings a little bit of humor. It kind of lightens the mood a little bit. Because a lot of times going into games, it’s all serious. You have to remember that this is a game and it’s supposed to be fun, and you’re supposed to have fun with it. And I think by him doing that it just makes us all feel a little bit more at ease, that if we’re stressed about the game or worried about the game or whatever, it kind of just puts our mind at rest.”

While Musselman has seemingly perfected the art of the pre-game motivational speech, he says he can’t take credit for all of it.

“I had a high school coach, Biff Lloyd, that was really creative in what he did, and I always thought that we had fun leading up to going out to play. I think it kind of started there,” Musselman said.

As his career took him to the NBA and Musselman read more books and met more figures in the sports world, he started borrowing methods from all over, extending past the well-known influences of Doc Rivers and his dad.

“I love reading about what coaches do," the second-year Hog coach said. "Sean Payton, we’ve stolen some ideas from him and kind of added to it. If you Google Sean Payton and the things that he’s done, whether it’s been a mouse trap -- and we’ve used that before… Oh, the toilet is from an old Cal State Fullerton baseball coach many, many, many years ago."

This all plays into the willingness of Musselman and the staff to take influence and inspiration from other sports and apply it to basketball. From a marketing standpoint, fans see Musselman wearing different logos for different NBA, MLB, NFL, MiLB, WNBA, and other teams, but a good amount of those stem from relationships Musselman actually has.

From a marketing standpoint, it’s genius. From a player’s standpoint, it’s fun and entertaining.

“It’s just something to break the monotony and instead of just standing up and saying, ‘Let’s get off to a fast start,’ you know, put some Kentucky Derby music on, show a little video behind me and come through a gate. I mean, seems to me that that’s a little bit better than me just saying, ‘Hey, let’s get off to a good start and play for 40 minutes.”

The unconventional nature of these motivational messages has caught national attention, with his recent "notes all over" tactic being featured on ESPN.

Musselman and staff placed over 100 signs all over the locker rooms and on players’ cars reminding them to defensive rebound. The Razorbacks out-rebounded the Mississippi State Bulldogs 45-34 in that game.

The recent Kentucky Derby message even made the rounds on Twitter, particularly with the Barstool crowd. Bobby Reagan (“Barstool Reags”), who covers college basketball for Barstool and is a Kentucky fan, even wrote an article about the use of the Kentucky Derby to motivate the Razorbacks. The Hogs won in Lexington 81-80, snapping an eight-game losing streak to the Wildcats.

Barstool also featured an article and twitter posts about Musselman dressing up as a UPS driving, telling his team it was “time to deliver.”

Musselman does say he has his favorites, and even mentioned one of them by name that the players haven’t heard yet.

“I have a bunch,” Musselman said. “I mean, these guys in two years haven’t heard my fighting Chinese fish story, yet. That’s a good one. We’ve got a lot of good ones. We try to change every day. You know, build off a new idea. We don’t know what we’re doing next game.”

This motivational tactic is much more than just an outside-the-box way to get players ready to win a basketball game. At its core, it is still marketing and branding the Razorback program like Musselman talked about the day he stepped into his role as head coach of the program.

Musselman made national headlines at Nevada for leading them to the Sweet Sixteen, but also for the funny, quirky videos he made with staff, as well as the creative ways in which he engaged with fans. Because of the pandemic, the fan interaction in person hasn’t been there. Instead, Musselman has continued to creatively motivate his team and post those motivations to social media. He engages with fans on Twitter regularly.

After the pandemic prematurely ended his first season as Head Hog, Musselman posted multiple videos of empty pressrooms giving press conferences to non-present members of the media and him poking fun at fans and critics by posing as one in an empty Bud Walton Arena.

Musselman is now one of the most engaged and recognizable coaches in all of college basketball, amassing the second-most interactions on his personal Twitter account of all head coaches.

As it stands, Arkansas is 15-5 (7-4) with a major chance to bolster their tournament resume on the road at Missouri this weekend.

When asked if he would do anything special to motivate the team for Missouri, Musselman simply responded, “I don’t know. I’m not going to tell anybody.”

Maybe it'll be the introduction of the fighting Chinese fish story, maybe not. But either way, we know it'll be entertaining.