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Published Nov 12, 2020
Red-White game serves as Part 2 of Arkansas' 'COVID Cup'
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Andrew Hutchinson  •  HawgBeat
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FAYETTEVILLE — Fans will get their first look at this year’s version of the Arkansas men’s basketball team Thursday evening.

In an event they’re calling “BWA Live,” the Razorbacks will have a dunk contest starting at 7 p.m. CT followed by their annual Red-White game.

Restrictions because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will limit Bud Walton Arena’s capacity to just 4,000, so only students will be allowed to attend in person. The scrimmage will be streamed on SEC Network-Plus, so it can be watched on the ESPN app or ESPN3.com with log-in credentials for a cable provider.

Head coach Eric Musselman said he is sensitive to season ticket holders, but really wanted to give the students a glimpse of the team because he knows the pandemic has particularly changed their lives - as his son, Matthew, is a sophomore at the University of San Diego.

“We as a program felt like it was a good way to do at least something for the students because look, regular adults sure, life is completely changed and everything,” Musselman said. “But for me, I feel like the students whether they're in fifth grade, sixth grade, college and high school…that's the best time of your life.”

Although it will be the first opportunity for fans to see the 2020-21 Razorbacks, the scrimmage is actually the second leg of what Musselman has dubbed the “COVID Cup.”

With the NCAA banning exhibition games as part of its altered schedule because of the pandemic, Arkansas is bringing in SEC referees for a series of scrimmages. Most of them are behind closed doors, but Thursday’s will serve as the annual Red-White game.

The plan is to have three or four segments of the COVID Cup before the Nov. 25 opener against Mississippi Valley State. What Musselman sees Thursday will likely impact whether there are one or two more scrimmages.

In the first one, redshirt junior JD Notae - a transfer from Jacksonville who sat out last season - led the way with 20 points. He was followed closely by freshman Moses Moody, who made 5 of 6 shots beyond the arc and finished with 18 points, while graduate transfer Vance Jackson also did a “great job” of scoring, according to Musselman.

However, the second-year coach said Notae and Moody probably struggled the most defensively, which was the theme of the scrimmage and an area of focus moving forward.

“Defensively, we’ve got to get a lot better,” Musselman said. “We’ve got to get a lot better defending the three based on Round 1 of that segment of live play.”

For the Red-White game, the team will be split evenly with five scholarship players starting on each side. With Abayomi Iyiola out with a torn ACL, that leaves just one scholarship player coming off the bench. Musselman said it’ll likely be Connor Vanover because he’s recently missed some practice time.

The teams will be shuffled at halftime, as well, in an effort to give the coaching staff a look at different combinations.

It will be a true scrimmage and not situational work, but Arkansas will play four quarters instead of two halves and it’s not expected to be a full-length game.

Even without exhibition games this year, Musselman cautioned fans not to put too much stock into what they see Thursday.

“When you talk about practicing four or five times a week and you talk about all the practices that have led up to this and then the post practices after this, I don’t think you can just take this thing and run with whatever happens (Thursday night),” Musselman said. “We all know that in the sport of basketball, somebody can get hot. That doesn’t mean that’s the same guy who’ll get hot for us opening night.”

In the grand scheme of things, the Red-White game is just a “glorified practice,” Musselman said, because it’s an intrasquad scrimmage instead of an exhibition against outside competition.

Considering how much they’ve practiced together in recent weeks, Musselman said he already kind of knows how things will go when KK Robinson faces Jalen Tate, when Notae faces Desi Sills, when Jackson faces Justin Smith, etc.

“I won't predict right now, but I can pretty much tell you how those matchups are going to look because we've got a body of work over an extended period of time,” Musselman said. “That's where you do miss an exhibition game, because if we were going to play Coach (Darrell) Walker and Little Rock, those matchups we've never seen which makes it way more game-like than a glorified practice."

Although there will be some natural late-shot clock and end-of-quarter situations, Musselman said they wouldn’t manipulate situations in the Red-White game.

They get plenty of “tie game, last two minutes” work in drills at practice, as the Razorbacks continue searching for a replacement for Mason Jones: a go-to guy who can score when they need a bucket.

“I have nightmares about it because quite frankly, guys that have that special ‘it’ factor, it’s hard to find,” Musselman said. “But I do think we’ll eventually identify who that guy is.”

More than anything, Thursday’s scrimmage will essentially simulate how a normal gameday will operate.

Musselman said the team will have a pregame meal earlier in the day and then he’ll give the players a couple of hours to themselves before they have to report back, just like a typical home game. They’ll also experience a shoot around, which Musselman calls a “gameday practice.”

When they finally tip off, it will be the first time for all of the newcomers to play in front of fans in an Arkansas uniform.

There won’t be any pressure on himself or the assistant coaches, Musselman said, but there “might be some internal angst with some” players. That’s understandable because it will be the first time many of them have played at Bud Walton Arena.

Included among that bunch is the Razorbacks’ quartet of freshmen from the Natural State: Davonte Davis, Moody, Robinson and Jaylin Williams.

“It’s a great feeling knowing I can represent the Arkansas Razorbacks, growing up watching them,” Williams said. “It’s a great feeling knowing I’m in the jersey of my home state, a great feeling.”