Fresh off of a short Christmas break, the Arkansas Razorbacks (8-4) will wrap up non-conference play with an intriguing matchup against a proven UNC Wilmington (9-2) squad inside Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville on Saturday.
The Seahawks are not your usual non-conference foe, though they usually aren't with Eric Musselman coaching the Hogs. UNC Wilmington has just two losses — a 30-point home loss to Appalachian State and an 8-point loss on the road at East Carolina. On the flip side, it owns wins over Murray State, Marshall, Georgia Southern and most notably Kentucky.
"It's a team that is very, very dangerous," Musselman said Thursday. "It's a team that is very well coached. It's a team that understands their roles. And it's a team that has two stars surrounded by really good perimeter players, and it's a very, very old team. I mean, they've got some veterans on this team that have played at multiple schools and have played multiple years of college basketball."
Head coach Takayo Siddle is in his fourth season with UNC Wilmington, which is coming off a 24-10 season in 2022-23. The Seahawks rank top-25 nationally in scoring offense and 3-point percentage. Their 80-73 win at then-No. 12 Kentucky on Dec. 2 is about as good as it gets.
"All you’ve got to do is look at Wilmington’s record and that lets you know how good they are," Musselman said. "We try to schedule teams that are really good. That’s the object of what we do. We don’t sit in the office in non-conference and say, ‘Hey, how many wins can we get? Let’s just schedule wins.’ You schedule people you think can challenge you. You schedule people that you think are going to have good [seasons].
"Them beating Kentucky, it’s not good for the SEC, but it’s good for our strength of schedule if they beat a Power 5 team. That’s good for us that Wilmington has had success. For us, we have to come ready to play."
Here's a closer look into UNC Wilmington's stats, efficiency ratings, projected lineups and more ahead of Saturday's game, which is set to tipoff at 4:00 p.m. CT on SEC Network:
