Arkansas men’s basketball has set a lofty standard since Eric Musselman took over at the helm, but the fifth-year head coach is running out of answers for his reeling Razorbacks after another head-scratching setback over the weekend.
Following a promising effort in a thrilling midweek win over Texas A&M, Arkansas laid an uninspired egg in Saturday’s 77-64 loss to South Carolina at Bud Walton Arena in a game where the already lopsided score was not indicative of the lack of competitiveness on display from the Hoop Hogs.
It was the latest in a troubling and expanding list of duds in Fayetteville this season that also includes Musselman’s first ever non-conference home loss in a November defeat to UNC Greensboro and the most lopsided loss in Bud Walton Arena history in a 32-point drubbing handed out by Auburn to open SEC play.
“It’s obviously disappointing,” Musselman said. “I thought we battled against Texas A&M. We’ve now had two home games where we’re not exhibiting the energy that we need to. Obviously, toughness, rebounding. Offensively, sharing the ball. There’s a whole bunch of stuff.”
“We played against a good team that played with more energy and more connectedness and more toughness than what we played with.”
With the margin for error virtually already reduced to razor-thin, Arkansas displayed little, if any, sense of urgency or grit as South Carolina coasted to a casual double-digit road win and exhibited more energy in the aftermath than the Hogs did through 40 minutes of play while doing TikTok dances on Nolan Richardson Court following the final horn.
“The team has to play harder, tougher,” Musselman said. “We all see it, and ultimately it always falls and coaches. So, we have to do our part as well.”
Effort, energy and enthusiasm have been the pillars from which Musselman has built the program and elevated Arkansas back to national prominence with three consecutive trips to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Midseason slumps are an annual occurrence, but it is hard to find much optimism this group of Razorbacks has the goods to make their yearly turnaround. The truth is at 10-8 overall and 1-4 in SEC play, Arkansas will need a minor miracle to even play its way back into the bubble conversation.
So, where have things gone wrong? After all, this is the same group who looked hungry, connected and motivated to make a statement in a preseason exhibition win over Purdue and thrilling victory over Duke in the ACC/SEC Challenge.
There is more than enough talent in the room to field a solid basketball team, but Arkansas is missing the buy-in and want-to required to find success on a consistent basis in one of the nation’s toughest conferences.
Arkansas is 18 games into the season, and Musselman has had no luck when it comes to identifying the players he can rely on from night to night. Despite declarations to the contrary pregame, the rotation roulette continued Saturday as a dozen Razorbacks got a look in the first half against the Gamecocks.
Unfortunately for the Hogs, the staff was unable to find a single combination to lean on with the culprits ranging from lack of execution and focus to lackluster effort and toughness across the board.
“I think both,” Musselman said. “You can’t go in a game and give up an easy basket cut. You’ve got to share the ball on offense. There’s a whole bunch of stuff, and above all else just playing hard.”
On the surface, it would seem prudent for Musselman to narrow down his rotation and stick with it long enough to let the Razorbacks sink or swim, but that is easier said than done when the team is getting humbled on its home floor by an opponent that projects as a bubble team at best.
“I mean, at some point, what do you want us to do, not try different players?”
Arkansas’ identity the past few years has rested on the defensive end where the Razorbacks have ranked inside the top 20 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency at KenPom for three consecutive seasons. As of Monday morning, Arkansas was all the way down at No. 105 in the country and 11th in SEC-only play.
Almost exclusively a man-to-man coach who opts for drop coverage in ball-screen action and deploys the patented “Pat Riley” closeouts on the perimeter, Musselman tried everything from zone to double teams to switching against the Gamecocks to no avail.
“We haven’t guarded the three all year,” Musselman said. “Again, it’s our issue to fix as a staff, but we’re doing the same drills we did when we led the nation in defending the three. I don’t like to talk about the past, but I’ve found myself doing that a lot this year.
“We played zone, we switched pick and rolls, we tried everything. And none of it was successful. And it’s not going to be successful unless everybody is connected and communicating on the floor. It doesn’t matter if you play zone, play man, trap. Again, the toughness, the effort, all that stuff has got to improve.”
At times this season, Arkansas has looked explosive offensively, but the attack has been mostly anemic in SEC play outside of the first half against Texas A&M. Against South Carolina on Saturday, the Razorbacks looked like a bunch casually going through the motions in the halfcourt before someone decided it was their turn to go iso and try to create.
“When you can beat your man off the dribble and find a teammate, that’s a start,” Musselman said. “But we have a lot of guys right now that don’t know how to set their man up off the ball. If you watch guys trying to get open, we don’t get open enough. We don’t cut hard enough. All areas we’ve got to continue to try to talk to the team, show them and then we’ve got to have guard play to beat people off the bounce.”
As Arkansas prepares for a brutal week ahead that features a road trip to Oxford to face 15-3 Ole Miss and a spotlight matchup in Fayetteville against red-hot Kentucky with College GameDay coming to town, Musselman finds himself most concerned with bringing the Hogs together as the season continues the tightrope walk of being salvaged versus falling apart altogether.
“Used to having really competitive groups that are super connected,” Musselman said. “So we have to try to help this group as much as we can moving forward.
Ugh, never thought I would see the day where we are below Ole Missus in Football and Basketball.