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If there was any doubt surrounding Eric Musselman’s feelings about returning to the Bay Area for the Sweet 16, he ended it not long after Arkansas beat New Mexico State to reach that stage of the NCAA Tournament.
With the UA on spring break, the Razorbacks’ third-year coach pitched the idea of a cross-country flight to his team rather than returning to Fayetteville in between.
“When we were leaving Buffalo, he asked us if we wanted to go straight to San Francisco from there and we kind of wanted to come back and get settled in a little bit,” Stanley Umude said. “But we know he’s going to be excited to be playing back in his hometown area.”
Musselman hasn’t shied away from his feelings about the West Coast leading up to Arkansas’ showdown with No. 1 Gonzaga at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
After all, it’s the part of the country he spent a good chunk of his childhood, where he went to college and where his two NBA head coaching jobs were.
“This is really about the players — it always is every time you get to an NCAA tournament, it’s a once in a lifetime experience for the guys,” Musselman said. “But to not say that going back to the Bay Area is special would not be truthful. It is extremely special.”
It’s worth noting that San Francisco is about 500 miles north of his hometown of San Diego, which is where he also went to college at the University of San Diego and where his mother still lives, but he also lived in the Bay Area for a stint.
In fact, Musselman told reporters Wednesday that he chose to return to Danville, Calif., after being fired by the Sacramento Kings to “be a dad.” Being back on the West Coast will also allow his mom to come to the games — something she hasn’t done since he’s been with the Razorbacks.
“My mom has not seen me coach a game at Arkansas,” Musselman said. “At her age, it's a little bit problematic to travel and change planes, but living in San Diego, she's going to be able to come watch us play on Thursday, which is really, really cool and extremely special to me.”
Musselman’s mom went to several big games while he was at Nevada because there was a direct flight from San Diego to Reno, Nev., but that hasn’t been the case the last three years. This trip will be even more special, too, because Musselman’s son, Michael, is also on the staff.
While his mom — and his other son, Matthew, who is making the trip from San Diego with her — is definitely getting a tickets from his allotment for the Sweet 16, not everyone was so lucky.
With so many friends and family in the area, Musselman said he’s already making cuts. One particular cousin, Chris Anderson (whom Musselman said is nicknamed “Goose”), received a text with a link to the UA website for tickets because there simply weren’t enough for everybody.
“I have a lot of friends and close, close people that I worked with that are still with the Warriors,” Musselman said. “Have a lot of people that are coming to the game. My ticket requests, I can probably add up every game in the last three years and put every game together and I've had more ticket requests for this one game.”
Of course, it’s also hard to ignore Musselman’s stint with the Warriors. He finished runner-up in NBA Coach of the Year voting his first season at Golden State in 2002-03, but was let go the next year after a change at general manager.
The Warriors no longer play at Oracle Arena in Oakland, where Musselman coached, but the site of the Sweet 16 — Chase Center — is their new home.
“It's not the arena that I coached in with the Warriors, but it's certainly the same organization,” Musselman said. “I look forward to bringing the team there and being able to tell them some stories about some of the things that have happened there.”
Another interesting angle to playing in the Warriors’ arena, which Musselman described as “probably the best arena in the world,” is that it’s the new home of Moses Moody.
Now a rookie with Golden State, Moody was a first-team All-SEC performer for the Razorbacks last season before becoming their first ever one-and-done player and first lottery pick since 2006.
Arkansas will be focused on trying to beat Gonzaga to advance to its second straight Elite Eight, but there are plenty of interesting storylines surrounding the game that make it even more special for Musselman and the Razorbacks.
“The day that I was either fired from the Kings or the Warriors, to think that I would be coaching in a Sweet 16 in the Bay Area, if anybody would have asked me that at that particular time, I would have told them there was zero chance — not 5%, not 10%, literally zero chance of that happening,” Musselman said. “I guess the world has a funny way of working itself out. It's a cool experience for my whole family, especially my two sons.”
