Musselman's roster flip leads to more depth, size, talent for Hogs

In about 15 months on the job, Eric Musselman has completely flipped Arkansas’ basketball roster.

With the addition of Indiana graduate transfer Justin Smith and subsequent transfer of Reggie Chaney, the Razorbacks will have 10 new faces on the court in 2020-21 and only two or three familiar ones.

Included among the new faces are three graduate transfers, four incoming freshmen and three traditional transfers who will be eligible to play after sitting out last season. The only returning players - as of now - will be Desi Sills and Ethan Henderson, with Isaiah Joe still pondering his decision with the NBA Draft.

“It’s really not that big a deal to me,” Musselman said. “When you’re coaching in the D-League you have 10 new players almost every other day. Guys are getting called up, guys are getting sent down. So that roster and flexibility bothers me zero.”

The only concern Musselman has regarding all of the new pieces is the amount of time they’ve lost because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Until last month, when they were allowed back for voluntary workouts, his players were spread out away from campus and unable to build the chemistry a team like that needs. With an uncertain timeline moving forward, Musselman will likely have a condensed amount of time to figure out rotations and things of that nature.

“It’s really going to be important whenever we do get back together on the floor that we try to figure out what pieces fit,” Musselman said. “We’ve lost a lot of time with so many new players, so we have a lot of work, whenever we do get back, to try to figure out strengths and weaknesses and who’s our go-to guy - Where are those sets coming from? Where are the shots coming from?”