What’s happened to Arkansas basketball? We asked someone who would know.
Eric Musselman hasn’t gone shirtless much lately.
Instead, the Arkansas basketball coach, known to rip off his shirt while celebrating a big win with Razorbacks fans, has looked confused, angry, apoplectic, anguished, you name it, as he watches his team stumble to a 1-5 SEC start heading into Saturday’s game against Kentucky at Bud Walton Arena.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After a pair of NCAA Tournament Elite Eight trips and a Sweet 16 finish with a win over No. 1 seed Kansas last season, the Razorbacks were ranked 14th in the AP preseason Top 25 this season. Now, Arkansas is 10-9 with a 32-point home loss to Auburn, a 22-point road loss at Florida and a 26-point Wednesday loss at Ole Miss on the résumé.
What’s going on? That’s the question I posed to Bob Holt, the longtime Arkansas athletics reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
“It’s hard to figure,” Holt said.
After all, back in October, Arkansas defeated Purdue in a charity exhibition game before a packed house at Bud Walton Arena in what Purdue coach Matt Painter called a Big Ten road game atmosphere. A month later, the Razorbacks beat visiting Duke 80-75 in the ACC/SEC Challenge.
“There were some red flags,” Holt said. “The first was they lost at home to UNC Greensboro (78-72). Then they went to the Bahamas and beat Stanford (77-74 in two overtimes) but lost to Memphis and North Carolina. They beat Duke without Tramon Mark, their best player. Trevon Brazile had a great game. But then Oklahoma put it to them (79-70).”
It has been downhill since then. The 83-51 loss to Auburn in Arkansas’ SEC home opener was the most lopsided defeat in Bud Walton’s 30-year history. Afterward, guard Keyon Menifield said, “It feels like we quit. We didn’t play as a team and we weren’t together out there. So when you’re not together and you don’t have fight out there and let people punk you, that’s what happens.”
A 76-66 loss at Georgia and 90-68 loss at Florida followed. The Razorbacks did edge Texas A&M 78-77 on a last-second Mark shot on Jan. 16, but then lost 77-64 to South Carolina at Bud Walton before being blown out yet again, this time 77-51 at Ole Miss in a game in which Mark did not play because of migraines and Brazile missed the second half with knee soreness.
“They’re very low in every meaningful stat,” Holt said. “They do have a lot of blocked shots, but that’s because they’ve been driven by so many times. They don’t offensive rebound. Auburn beat them in points in the paint 48-18. They don’t really do anything well. They don’t have anything to hang their hat on.”
Searching for answers, Musselman has used various lineups. Eleven Razorbacks have started at least one game. Thirteen saw the court in Oxford. None for more than 27 minutes. When asked if playing so many players was hurting continuity, the coach said if players are playing poorly, he has no choice but to give others a chance.
“You feel like they have talented players. Mark started every game at Houston last year (before transferring to Arkansas). Devo Davis is a four-year player. Muss has always done well in the transfer portal. They just haven’t figured out.”
It’s to the point where Musselman, who never uses a zone defense, played a few possessions of zone at Florida.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Holt said.
And yet ESPN is bringing “College GameDay” to Fayetteville on Saturday for the 6 p.m. tilt. In the past, Kentucky vs. Arkansas at Bud Walton is a big deal A very big deal. This year?
“They are 1-5 just like last year (before finishing 8-10), but this year the losses are by an average of 20.6 points,” Holt said. “If you’re an Arkansas fan, what gives you hope you can beat Kentucky is that you did beat Duke, you beat Purdue, you beat Texas A&M. We know they have talent, they just haven’t put it together for some reason. Maybe they will Saturday. We’ll see.”
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