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FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas used an event traditionally centered around the future to honor its past Saturday afternoon.
Playing at Barnhill Arena for the first time since the early 1990s, the Razorbacks opened the Eric Musselman era with their annual Red-White game. The score was reset and the teams swapped jerseys at halftime, but the original Red team raced out to a huge lead and hung on for a 62-54 win.
Both head coaches who built Arkansas into a national powerhouse inside the building were in attendance, with Nolan Richardson and Eddie Sutton being recognized before tip and then taking a photo with the team afterward.
“I’m new to the area, obviously, but understand the significance of what both men did for this state and what they did for the university and the basketball program,” Musselman said. “To be able to have them come in a setting like tonight, I thought it was really cool.”
In addition to getting to see a basketball game inside Barnhill, fans showed up in droves to get their first glimpse of the 2019-20 Razorbacks.
The estimated attendance for the Red-White game was 4,559, but that number seems pretty low. The arena doesn’t seat 9,000-plus like it did in its heyday, as it’s been reconfigured for volleyball and gymnastics, but the capacity is still 8,500 and all but the very top sections were packed.
“I thought it was a great crowd and they stayed until the end,” Musselman said. “It seems like people are intrigued by the guys on the floor and wanted to watch our ball club.”
As far as the basketball itself, it was much more low scoring than a typical Red-White game. The two teams combined for 116 points. Accounting for the fact they played four eight-minute quarters, the Razorbacks were on pace for 145 points - still much lower than the 188 they averaged in regulation over the previous three years.
However, for the most part, Musselman liked what he saw from his team.
“Offensively, we’re probably a little bit ahead of where I thought we might be, as far as spacing, and defensively, we have to get a lot better in a lot of areas,” Musselman said. “But overall, pleased with the performance and the guys picking up the offensive terminology in such a short period of time.”
Here are a few observations and takeaways from the scrimmage…
Swiss Army Knife
While at Nevada, Musselman developed a reputation for building teams through transfers. Not surprisingly, he dipped into the portal quite a bit during his first offseason at Arkansas and scored one of the biggest graduate transfers on the market in Jimmy Whitt Jr.
That name should sound familiar to fans because he actually signed with the Razorbacks coming out of Columbia, Mo., Hickman High School as the No. 55 overall prospect in the Class of 2015.
