What Eric Musselman said after Arkansas beat Old Dominion
Between Arkansas’ poor 3-point defense and perhaps poorer rebounding, everyone in the media room after No. 14 Arkansas beat Old Dominion on Monday figured coach Eric Musselman would be unhappy.
Everyone was right.
The Razorbacks won, 86-77, but gave up 11 3-pointers and were outrebounded by a Sun Belt team.
Makhi Mitchell played a season-high in minutes largely because the Razorbacks were struggling so bad inside and he responded with 15 points and 10 rebounds. The points were the most he has scored in his two years at Arkansas.
Still, Musselman was a bit more focused on the negative. That isn’t unusual, especially in the nonconference season.
Check out everything the Hogs coach had to say below. Note: Musselman’s remarks are paraphrased.
Rebounding and defense
We have to be way more physical, defensive rebounding the basketball. Way mroe physical. Defensively, 43%, we’d like our opponents to shoot a lower percentage, but the field-goal percentage wasn’t the issue. It was the lack of 3-point defense and the lack of physicality. … We’re not rebounding with any physicality. It’s just not happening other than Mitchell. He’s our one guy that has rebounded with physicality. I thought we were great against Purdue doing it. Have been really bad physical rebounders the last two games.
3-point struggles
For eight years. Same drills. Same everything. Doing the same drills we did when we were No. 1 in the country defending the 3. Devo was a 10 out of 10 the first half guarding their star player, then the second half. … Why? I don’t know. Our transition defense, matching up to people was abysmal.
Devo Davis' game
Devo, taking care of the ball, there are some real positives, believe it or not. Defending without fouling is something we really worked on. … The fouling was really good. Defending without fouling, A-plus. Taking care of the basketball, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a team have four turnovers against a high-steal team. Taking care of the ball A-plus. Defensive rebounding, double-F. Transition defense, triple-F. Guarding the 3, there’s no grade it was so bad. Some good and some very poor.
Versus years past
I think we’re a good offensive team and we’re a team that’s got to get better defensively. Some of our teams have been really good on defense and not very good on offense. It’s hard to be great on both sides of the ball, but we’re going to get back and try to become better defensively.
Never in control
We kept geting it to 10 then it’d get back to five or six. We didn’t separate. Maybe we’d get up 10 and give up a transition basket. … They play hard. They play tough. They’re probably going to be right there looking at a conference championship. That’s why we scheduled them. I watched the whole Baylor-Gardner-Webb game and that was a six-point game until the 7:30 mark. Baylor couldn’t separate from Gardner-Webb like we did. … I think the state of college basketball right now is you’ve got to come ready to play. Probably an upset tonight, too. It’s every night now with the way the transfer portal is. Teams are tough to win. University of Miami tonight against Florida International that was a single-digit game, too. Florida International hadn’t won. … That’s just kind of the nature how it is if you don’t come and play for 40 minutes.
Makhi
I thought he was awesome. The one shot he missed was his easiest look. Really happy that he went 6 of 7 and could have been 7 of 7. He didn’t force anything. Ten rebounds. Thank goodness for him and T-Mark defensive rebounding. … Two guys defensive rebounding and a bunch of guys doing what this room did.
El Ellis
El has done a really good job of asking for feedback of what we’re looking for. I gave him a sheet today of the women’s coach at Duke having great quotes about being a point guard and what Pat Summitt had kind of taught her. He’s a guy that wants to, he understands what areas people want to see from him, which is taking care of the ball and late-game. Late-game we went to El. It was him in middle pick-and-roll to try to get to the basket. We’re finding some strengths for different people in late-game situations or late-game packages.
Getting to the hole
I think we’ve got really good dribble-drive penetration guys. Really happy with 29 FTAs. We’ve got to convert them better. Second game in a row where we haven’t done a good enough job converting free throws. Three steals, that’s not activity.
Brazile defese
He’s so long. He’s got great anticipation. I thought he got lost guarding the 3. I thought Blakely got some good looks on us. We’ve got to guard the perimeter and got to guard the rim, as well.
Devo taking care of the ball
How many turnovers he got? Not many players in the country have played his minutes, had the ball in his hands and not had a turnover. It’s phenomenal. He’s got the flair. He’s got some stuff to his game. He’s still doing that. He’s still making some oh-wow plays that get the crowd on their feet, which we want. He’s doing it now a little more deliberately.
Trevon at the 5
When he does it, he’s got to really rebound defensively in order for us to do that. If he’s not, it’s really hard to do that. If a game calls for us to space the floor out, I think TB made those 2 for 4 from 3 tonight and I think it opens driving angles, for sure, for other players when he’s at the 5. Could be, if we are physical enough doing that. I thought about putting him at the 3 tonight, too. Mitchell was playing good. I thought about letting Chandler roll a little more or putting Graham back in and putting TB at the 3. We just never got to that.
Greensboro game circled for Trevon
I hope not. I hope he just comes out and plays. That’s always hard for a player knowing there was an injury against a certain team. UNCG, they’re good. We were down five last year in this game at halftime. The game was a single-digit game. They have a potential all-league player back at center. They have the Defensive Player of the Year back. And then they have a guy at the small forward spot that’s an absolute roper. He had four 3s against us. They’ve got some guys back from last year that really, really hurt us. We need to play our best game of the season on Friday, that’s for sure.
Stamina, how are they?
I didn’t think we looked tired. I just thought we didn’t follow some of the assignments. Maybe some of you guys thought we looked tired. I didn’t feel that way at all. Mark only played 21 minutes, which is his low. I think Brazile is in good enough condition where his minutes are fine. El played some good minuets. Devo never gets tired. If we would have ended the game poorly, then maybe. We stunk to start the game. We stunk to start the half. Something’s got to give. Certainly coming out of the half and starting the game, that didn’t have anything to do with coniditioning. That’s our job as a staff.
A core foursome at point
Really good offensively. Really got to get better in transition defense. Look, as happy as we are with our offense, No. 13 Caesar, he played 16 minutes and had 18 points against our guards. Credit to Caesar. He wasn’t on our scouting report, really. He torched us in the backcourt. We’ve got to get better. … Then their other guard had 21. Our guards have to defend much, much better than what we did tonight.
Big picture issues
Rebounding and physicality. And guarding the ball. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of stuff to be concerned with.
This was Ki’s best game. This was Ki’s best game in everything. This was his best game body language. This was his best game in timeouts and huddles. This was his best game iwth his teammates. This was his best game with the coaching staff. Then he played really well, too. Hopefully he can keep doing that. I thought from a maturity standpoint and doing what we needed and doing it with really positive passion, he was really good tonight.
