Everything Eric Musselman said after Arkansas beat Texas A&M at buzzer
Arkansas coach Eric Musselman wanted to see heart. He wanted to see fire.
He might have preferred more attractiveness, too, but that old phrase about beggars and chooses is apt.
His Razorbacks weren’t pretty Wednesday, but they didn’t have to be. They snapped a three-game losing streak to start SEC play by beating Texas A&M, one of the league favorites at the beginning of the season to revive hopes in Fayetteville.
Arkansas’ defense was especially good. Or maybe the Aggies were suffering the effects of the wind chilld. Texas A&M shot just 32% from the floor, a statistic Musselman attributed to changing approaches on the Aggies’ two stars.
But it was Tramon Mark who was the real reason Arkansas picked up its first SEC win. He scored 35 points, including a fadeaway from the game-winner at the buzzer, to keep Arkansas’ hopes alive.
Here’s everything Musselman had to say after the game.
Describing last play
We spaced the floor out. TB, luckily, we were able to get organized because were out of timeouts. We were able to set up a little bit of a press break even though they kind of matched up straight man. There was no press as there had been, so to speak. We got the ball in the hands of who we needed to tonight. T-Mark was playing with such great confidence. We just spaced out. Davenport in one corner. El Ellis in the other corner. TB trailing as the inbounder and we had Menifield on the 45-degree angle on the left side. Said there’s no way we’re taking a 3. We’ve got to go to the cup or at least get inside that 12- to 14-foot range, really.
More on Mark
That’s his, I mean, I know all the analytics people talk about mid-range being a bad shot. It’s been a good shot for us at Arkansas. Jimmy Whitt. Ricky Council. T-Mark. That’s a great shot for him. Not a good shot. He’s a lethal pull-up jump shooter. … Our guys did a great job of finding him. His two 3s were off spot-up assists. We did a pretty good job on the glass. Not great. But decent enough to win the game. Look, we led for 38 minutes. That’s a drastic improvement from where we’ve been. … Give Texas A&M a ton of credit. They’ve had a lot of come-from-behind wins. It was an incredible shot by a great player in Wade Taylor.
Didn't want to foul Mark
I don’t ever comment. I wasn’t part of their, I know that we wanted to try to get the ball to the rim. Again, I did not want to see a 3-point shot for us at that juncture. We had been the foul line 40 times. We wanted to try to put as much pressure ont he defense as we could.
Plan for Mark
We felt like there were some areas on the floor that we could try to get him the ball. Pretty evident from the start we were trying to get him in certain matchups. So, yeah. They have two star players in my opinion. Radford, we couldn’t have done a better job. Taylor, what an incredible performance all the way across the board for him. He did take 32 shots. He could get his own shot at will because he’s such a special player.
El Ellis bounce back
Just kind of, we’ve kind of been a moving target on who starts. I felt like he’s a veteran and we’re playing a veteran team. Seems like a couple of those guys have been there since I first got here. I don’t know if they have or not. Lot of fifth-year guys. Lot of guys that have played in this building. Felt from an experience standpoint that was why we started the group. I thought Chandler had a lot of experience. Been very level-headed the way he follows the gameplan. We knew they were going to soft trap the pick-and-roll. We felt it was important we had a guy who was a willing passer and non-turnover player. … Going into the game, our 5-men being involved as distributors and being the kick-out players was something we worked on
More on Ellis
Whenever we practiced the other day (he knew he was a starter). He jumped out there with the first unit. i was putting in a play, didn’t call out five guys and he jumped out there. Kind of showed the whole staff, like, he wanted to be with that first group. I didn’t call out a first five on purpose. I wanted to see the first five who were eager to get out there as we were adding something. We need him to play well. He went 3 for 11, but the key was his rebounding. That’s a career high. He played a lot of minutes last year. For him to rebound the ball like he did, phenomenal. Our bench has to rebound. Flat-out. This plus-minus thing is important to me and our staff. We’ve got to get better in the plus-minus area from an individual standpoint with some of our guys. That’s got to happen for us.
Relentless attacking
They’re super aggressive defensively. You’ve got to be strong with the ball and you can’t settle. That was two things we tried to do. We did a good job. You can’t settle against Texas A&M.
Fast start
Where has this been? I mean, look, we led the whole game. Again, give them credit. They led for six seconds. For us, we needed to lead from start to finish in a game. When you lose like we have of late, your confidence can get shaken. All over the locker room, there’s probably 40 signs in there that say ‘bring your swagger back.’ … We had swagger when we played Purdue. We need that back. The only way to truly, truly get it back is to play well.
What changed?
One, we had a good crowd. I think when you play at home. Florida had a great crowd. Different lineup. I thought, Joseph of late played really well last game. I think it kind of put everybody on alert, so to speak. You’ve got to play super, super hard and you’ve got to follow the gameplan. I think those two guys playing well maybe helped the other guys understand I better play or I’m not going to get my minutes back. I think it carried over tonight, I think it really did.
How big was the win?
Confidence-wise, we needed it, for sure. It’s one game. It’s over. South Carolina’s depth chart right now. I can’t wait to get home and start digging into South Carolina. They’ve had an incredible season so far. I think even myself, you win a game, kind of puts extra juice in you. It’s on to South Carolina and we’ll see what happens on Saturday.
Bottling up Radford
We tried to send help in extra areas. Really worked against Radford. Really didn’t work against Taylor. They’re both great players. Buzz Williams is a great coach. They’re super well-coached. They’re super hard to prepare for. I love watching those guys play when we’re not playing. Radford, he can do so many things. He can play the 1, 2, 3, 4. I thought we did a good job of bigs being in the right help position, trying to get him in certain spots on the floor.
Khalif Battle and rotations
It was a coach’s decision. Shrinking the rotation. Who knows whose day it’ll be Saturday. I have no idea. None of you guys know. That locker room probably doesn’t know. Devo’s defense was where we wanted it. El did a great job on the defensive backboards. … Everybody’s got to be ready, obviously. The way we sub right now, you never know.
