Arkansas Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman on differences this year with more experienced roster not causing same coaching frustration as last year's young and talented team.
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00:09 Year five for you here in Arkansas and this is I was I did a piece the other day about
00:14 your roster having 35 years of Division One experience,
00:17 seven transfers the most you've had since coming here. Will you talk a little bit about the
00:21 vast difference between last year and a young team and maybe one that's a more veteran experience and
00:27 how that even impacts practices and how you plan. Yeah, I think every year is different.
00:32 You know, it's really helped to have, you know, the returners back, meaning Devo and Jalen Graham
00:44 and you know, Cade and Lawson and Joseph. It's helped to, you know, we have a little bit more
00:54 returners than we've had. And then obviously, with the experience that we have with guys like
01:03 L. Ellis and, you know, Davenport and, you know, Brazil's helped a lot on the side. He still hasn't
01:11 jumped in with us full go. But having returners along with veterans that have played a lot of
01:18 college basketball games. T. Mark comes from a great program at Houston. So, you know, like
01:28 you get a guy like T. Mark who's played for such a great coach and Calvin Sampson,
01:33 he understands how to work hard. He understands expectations. So I think that's, you know,
01:39 it's different, you know, with experience, you know, you can do things a little bit differently.
01:47 And then with some, you know, we have more returners than we did in the past as well.
01:51 So we've been able to accelerate some of our schemes. But, you know, there's no comparison
01:58 ever of really teams other than the fact that, you know, what can this group execute and then
02:05 move on to the next step or maybe a different phase. We've got in a lot more right now than
02:12 we have in the past four years. And I think it's a combination of a whole bunch of things.
02:19 Eric, I remember last year you were saying that you were having to repeat yourself a lot
02:23 with that young group. Is there less of that kind of with the teaching aspect of the summit?
02:27 Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, when I come home at night, you know, I mean, I tell Danielle all
02:35 the time, like, it's, you know, there's not as much coaching frustration. You know, in reality,
02:48 we've had one bad, you know, we've had one bad practice, I thought, the whole summer.
02:54 And then we've had a couple that, you know, we'd like the energy a little bit better. But I would
03:00 say, you know, for the most part, and again, we're doing, you know, we're doing execution,
03:06 we're doing teaching, we're doing five on O, skeleton, dry run type stuff. You know, we have,
03:14 you know, no way, shape, or form if we even come close to a rotation.
03:19 Roles are being formulated in the coaching staff and probably in the players' minds. I'm sure that,
03:29 you know, the players are forming opinions of teammates and forming maybe who they trust or
03:35 formulating who could be a go to guy. And I use that term very loosely, like who could be,
03:41 because that's going to all evolve and develop. And, you know, we hope to, you know, whoever we
03:47 are in November, we hope that just like in the past that we're much different come March, and
03:53 that could be rotation player wise, it could be set play. I mean, we, you know, we still have a
04:00 lot to try to figure out, but it's been a really good, a really good summer as far as working.
04:06 Our mile times, you know, much improved off, you know, the last four years. And then,
04:16 you know, it's similar approach and adding type stuff that we had, you know, with our last year
04:25 at Nevada, I would say. Curtis. I know you guys have been limited in what you can do over the
04:30 summer. I'm just curious of maybe your overall takeaways. Are there certain things about this
04:35 group that have really stood out to you that you like, or maybe any areas you've identified that
04:39 you need to work on going into the fall? Really coachable group. And I'll give you an example.
04:44 L. Ellis was really quiet, you know, did his own, you know, was doing what he should do as
04:55 an individual. I don't know if I've seen a player change so quickly in his leadership, his verbal
05:05 command of the floor. Been really cool to see in a very short period of time. And then,
05:12 and then the other guy, like Jalen Graham's practice habits are dramatically different
05:16 than last year. Dramatically. He's done an incredible job of understanding expectations
05:24 and then following through on his part. So there's been some evolving even this summer,
05:31 but that's been one thing, Curtis, that's really been cool to see is Graham's, you know, evolution
05:39 and how L has really picked up what our expectations are and how we try to
05:44 conduct practice and, you know, how talking and verbalization is really important on the court
05:52 for us. And we've already talked a lot about the veterans on the group. Just curious what you've
05:58 seen from your freshmen, Layden and Bay, so far and how they've kind of acclimated themselves to
06:02 the team. Yep. Great question. I mean, Bay got here a little bit later than some of the other
06:07 guys. He's, he's a very, very hard worker. Spends a lot of time on his own. Surprisingly, he can
06:17 make threes, you know, at a much higher clip. Got to continue to work on hands, catching the ball
06:25 in traffic is an area that we want to continue to, to work with him on. You know, and he's,
06:31 he's going to, you know, because he's a freshman, he's going to play a little bit catch up
06:35 on understanding as we add stuff. And again, he came late. So I think anybody that doesn't,
06:43 you know, isn't here when, when some of the foundation stuff has been put in, you're,
06:48 you're playing catch up and certainly, you know, he falls into that. And then,
06:52 you know, Layden is, he's got a very mature approach to how he conducts. I don't know if
07:00 I've been around, you know, a player his age who comes in pre-practice and get, goes into the
07:05 weight room and starts stretching and getting himself mentally ready to practice, not play,
07:12 but to practice. So he's got a, he's, he's mature beyond what his age is and he's a good leader on
07:19 the floor and he's got point guard characteristics for sure. You've had a lot of, I guess,
07:26 non-traditional lead guards in your time at Arkansas with, you know, Jimmy Witt, Jalen Tate,
07:30 and even Anthony Black last year. With Ellis, how would you compare and contrast his skill set and
07:35 kind of what he brings to the table as a potential point guard for you? Yeah. I mean, I think when,
07:38 when we look at, you know, Jalen Tate and Jimmy Witt and, and, and, and Anthony Black, I mean,
07:45 those guys were, you know, they were freaks from a length and a size standpoint. Cody Martin at
07:52 Nevada, Lindsey Drew at Nevada, those guys are, you know, they're, they're 6'6" with seven foot
07:59 wingspans that guard the one and a half guys every possession just because of their length. So we're
08:05 a little bit different, you know, this year when El's out there and when Layden's out there.
08:11 But we're also a little bit different because they're, they have a little bit more traditional
08:17 point guard mentality of, of, of, of some things that we won as well. So, you know, probably not
08:25 going to defensive rebound as well as we, as we have in the past at that position. Cause,
08:30 you know, Anthony Black's one of the best defensive rebounders in college basketball.
08:35 Jimmy Witt was, was incredible rebound of the ball. Tate was, you know, great at it as well. So
08:42 we're, you know, we're a little different in that aspect. And, and El's been traditionally a score,
08:51 a scoring guard who's played the point. We're going to, we're going to want him to continue
08:56 to score, but also to be a little bit more of a facilitator than maybe what he has been able to
09:01 show last year. And with Keon Minifield, obviously you'd rather have him this year ready to play,
09:07 but just as the plan with him, maybe to have him on the JD/Notay track, you know, I know the
09:11 red shirt year was very important for his development. Yeah. I think one of the, one of the
09:15 non-benefits of the way the transfer portal is right now, I've, you know, as I look back at,
09:23 at the transfers that we've had that have sat out now, you know, I'll use Cody and Caleb Martin as
09:29 an example. I thought it was the best thing for their, the longevity of their career. And that's
09:34 proven the case with how they're playing at the NBA level. You know, Keon, super, super talented.
09:43 You know, Pat Eckerman who was on staff here and he watched our practice, you know, and just,
09:52 you know, talked about, wow, you know, he's special talent, you know? And, and, you know, that's,
10:03 that's what the year's got to be about is how, how can he get better? How can he gain weight?
10:08 How can he gain strength? Certainly we got a pretty good player on, on scout team.
10:14 Eric, I know you like these big preseason exhibition games. I'm just curious how the
10:21 Purdue exhibition game came about. Do you have a connection with, with, with coach Painter?
10:27 The only connection really with coach Painter is just, you know, Nike puts on a,
10:31 on an event with, with a certain group of coaches. And so I've been a part of that with him
10:37 and his wife and Danielle, you know, but, but nothing, you know, substantial other than the
10:43 fact that from afar, you know, you're talking about one of the premier programs in the country.
10:49 You're talking about, you know, when we met about as a, as a staff, it was how can we play
10:56 a top three team in the nation who would be willing to play us? And how could we possibly
11:08 do that in front of our home fans? Because last year we played Texas, who was a top 10 team for
11:15 most of the year. How could we get a team in Bud Walton? And Todd Lee, you know, did a great job of,
11:25 of working the exhibition game for us and then doing that with administration and,
11:31 and Purdue's administration. I think it's going to be a great game for Purdue, for Arkansas,
11:37 for our fan base as well. Cause it's, it's, I mean, you're going to, you're going to be able to
11:45 get a big 10 team in here that I'm going to assume comes in anywhere from one to three.
11:52 And they're really unique. They have incredible shooters. They were young last year. They have a
12:00 player that could be player of the year in college basketball, who's overly unique in how you have
12:07 to prepare for him. So I think it gives us a lot of, a lot of really great things. And we referenced
12:12 our Texas game, even as we got ready for the NCAA tournament about things Texas did about
12:20 physicality. So hopefully this game, this is, this is a game that we're going to be able to
12:26 reference throughout the course of the season as well. Coach, you mentioned some of the, the
12:32 practice habits that have been impressive, but when you think about the transfers, is there any
12:36 one player, one specific, you know, basketball skill from them that's really stood out and
12:40 surprised you so far in summer workouts? You know, I think that when you, when you go and,
12:45 and you, and you get into the transfer portal, I think that, you know, you try to study a player
12:51 analytically. You try to study how he did in league play. You try to study how he played against,
12:58 you know, top 20 teams. You try to figure out, you know, what a guy can do in clutch situations.
13:04 So I think we've, you know, we've studied the guys that we've gotten, or even the guys that
13:11 we maybe missed on and, and, and didn't get. I think we, you know, there shouldn't be a lot
13:16 of surprises with the transfer due to the fact that you're able to evaluate that player in Division
13:21 One level. So I don't know if there's been any real surprises. I mean, we have been, you know,
13:30 we've been banged up. You know, we've, we've, we've had a lot of guys on the side that, that are,
13:38 that'll all be, for the most part, every, when we come back, I mean, we have one more,
13:43 one more practice tomorrow. And when we come back, we should be a team that's,
13:48 that's fully healthy and there's no reason to go into, you know, who was hurt. It's,
13:52 it's irrelevant because, you know, we're doing everything behind closed doors. And when we come
13:57 back, you know, other than, other than the timeline of, of, of Brazil will be a little bit
14:04 different than some of our other guys because, you know, we are being overly, you know,
14:10 precocious with him and want to make sure that we, we hit that nine month mark before he,
14:16 you know, does a whole lot. Coach, you talked about the Purdue game, but you also have Duke
14:22 coming in for the ACC/SEC challenge. Just what does it say about where your program is
14:27 to get those two teams coming into Bud Walton? Yeah, well, I think one, Purdue, you know,
14:34 that game in particular, like they had a choice of probably doing that game with a lot of people.
14:39 And I think that, you know, Coach Painter and his staff understand that,
14:44 you know, Bud Walton is a unique place to play. And, and, and I'm really hopeful that our,
14:52 I'm hopeful that our fans across the state understand the significance of getting a team
14:59 like this for an exhibition because there's not a lot of exhibition games that are being played
15:03 against Division I teams. And so we're doing something unique. We're doing something that,
15:11 you know, I mean, you're putting it all out there really quickly.
15:17 You know, you're, you're auditioning in front of a lot of people. You know, it's, it's, there's a
15:23 little bit more opinions are going to be formed during that game, after that game than if you
15:31 play a Division II team. So credit to Purdue for being willing to play a road game, credit to them
15:38 to be willing to play a, you know, a quality opponent and same thing from us. Like we,
15:44 they've proven a lot more than we have with, with who they have coming back. So,
15:47 and then the Duke game, look, Bud Walton was going to be sold out, you know, regardless of what our
15:56 schedule looked like across the board. But the, the four years that I've been here, I would
16:03 anticipate that, that the Duke game is, is going to be like, you know, when we played Kentucky
16:10 and when we've played Auburn and they've been ranked very high. I know that the requests,
16:17 you know, that I've gotten from friends, I taught, I was talking to Phil Nevin last night,
16:23 the Angels manager, he's coming to that game. Like there's a lot of people that want to come
16:28 to that particular game too, which is, you look at our schedule with the three Bahama games
16:36 at the battle of Atlantis. And then you look at, you know, Oklahoma and you look at
16:40 Duke, that's going to be as five challenging games as this program's ever played
16:48 non-conference. And, you know, it'll, it'll, we'll figure out ways to get better after
16:57 playing those five games too, because we're going to find some holes in our team for sure
17:03 with a lot of new guys playing that quality opponent. We know Duke will come in here one,
17:08 two or three as well. So between the Purdue game and, and the Duke game, we'll probably play two
17:16 of the top three teams in the country in, in a four week span. Getting, getting Kentucky,
17:24 staying with schedule and up home and away for a back-to-back season, it's only going to be the
17:28 third time since Arkansas has been the SEC. Has there anything come from the league? How many
17:31 times has it been since I've been here? Twice, two out of, right. But I mean, I always thought
17:36 that those are two of your premier programs in the league. Why weren't they playing more home
17:40 and away? Did you get anything from the office other than here's the schedule? Do you know why
17:44 they're leaning into that? We just get the schedule, you know, but I mean, certainly,
17:50 you know, with, with coach Cal and his program, I mean, it's, it's like what they experience as a
17:57 team every year. They go into everybody's building, you know, it's sold out. It's a game that's
18:04 circled right away. You know, for us, if you look at our road attendance and I, you know, I have not
18:11 studied the numbers, but, but probably should, I'd love to know what our road attendance is this
18:16 year, because we went in a lot of buildings that were sold out too. And, and with each passing year,
18:24 again, I don't have the numbers and I could, I could definitely be way off. But if I had to
18:29 guess our road attendance numbers have, have probably increased as well. Okay. And a follow
18:35 up. You don't have to go to Knoxville, I think for the first time since you've been here this
18:39 year, they come in. And if you consider now getting a timeshare in Tuscaloosa, the schedule
18:44 seems to send Arkansas to Bama lately, and now you get Tennessee. Yeah. And I think that, you
18:50 know, every coach, every program has their own philosophy on things. But your question, Kevin,
18:56 is, is, is, you know, in the NBA, it's an 82 game schedule and you, you play everybody equal,
19:03 right? You play your conference, a certain amount of games. You play the other conference home and
19:10 away. At Nevada, we had a balanced schedule. So winning the league carried a lot of weight.
19:20 When you have an imbalanced schedule, strength of schedule matters. And who you play and where
19:30 you play them and what time of the year you play them matters. So we had a much higher goal at,
19:41 at Nevada to win the, to win the conference based on how the schedule was set up.
19:46 Here, I don't know how you determine who, it's really hard to determine who the best team is,
19:54 because not everybody's schedule's equal. And, and so, like our goal is how do we get better in
20:04 March? How do we advance in the tournament? That's, that's always going to be our goal because of
20:09 what, of what you said. I mean, you know, I can tell you a lot of restaurants in certain cities,
20:16 and then there's other cities in our league that I have no idea of one restaurant,
20:21 based on how often or how little we've visited them.
20:25 Yeah, Coach, this is the first time we've been able to talk to you since the board approved
20:31 those Bud Walton renovations. I was just curious your thoughts on those.
20:34 I mean, it's way over my, you know, deal. But, I mean, obviously, I think anytime there's going
20:43 to be renovations with anything, you know, you're excited. And, and, you know, I know that there'll
20:50 be a lot of conversations on, you know, what those look like. And I probably won't be asked too much,
20:58 unless I ask about the locker room. But I think whatever, you know, they come to is going to be
21:04 awesome for the program and great for the fan base. And, and, you know, this, the, the game
21:13 of college basketball is, is, is changing. It's becoming way more entertainment.
21:19 Part of that's, you know, having your building be the place to be so that you don't, you know,
21:28 you don't just want to cater to basketball fans. You need to, like, cater to, you know,
21:34 people that don't necessarily love basketball. And you do that by having amenities in an array,
21:40 like that's some of the, that's what makes pro sports different is how they market
21:45 and get people to come to their games that aren't coming just for the, just for the ball and the two
21:52 hoops. They're coming to a place to be. It's fun environment. It's entertaining, you know,
21:59 all those things. And, and certainly having a building be renovated, I think it can certainly
22:05 add to that tremendously. You mentioned the Oklahoma game. How did that game kind of get
22:10 back on the schedule if it wasn't, what went into that? Well, I read, you know, that at one point
22:17 Hunter said it was off and I thought it was off too. You know, it was, it was discussed, you know,
22:26 possibly playing it in Oklahoma city. It was discussed, are we going to do it or not do it
22:33 in Tulsa? I think it's great for Oklahoma. I think it's great for, for Arkansas. I think it's great
22:39 for the Sooners fan base. I think it's great for the Razorback fan base. I think it's great for
22:45 Porter Mosier. I think it's great for our staff. So the environment there,
22:50 any fans that haven't been there for either program, I think it's a great game. It gives
22:58 you a different feel than our own building, much like the Little Rock game does. It's, it's, it's
23:04 really cool. It's, it's, you know, if you play double digit games in, in, in, in Budwalt, then
23:11 you get an opportunity to go play a game and it's, it, it, it helps us prepare for the NCAA tournament.
23:17 I can tell you that to, to, you know, obviously you go to Little Rock and it's a, you know,
23:23 it's all a hundred percent Razorback fans, but still it's a different environment that we have
23:28 to adjust to, which I think helps prepare our basketball team. From a fan base standpoint,
23:35 it's great as well. Going to Tulsa, jumping on a bus, go staying in, it's different than playing
23:40 a game in this building. It is a neutral site game. So I think that's a, that's an awesome
23:46 game for us too on the schedule. With Tremont and Jeremiah, is anything in particular stood out to
23:54 you about those guys this summer and where do you think they can maybe best help you? Yep. So
23:58 T-Mark is a, I mean, you're talking about a guy that started on a team that was ranked number one
24:05 for most of the year. So that alone speaks volumes. Houston, one of the toughest teams
24:13 physically, one of the best defensive teams every year, one of the most disciplined coaches. So
24:23 T-Mark got all of that. I think he's a very underrated offensive player from the way that
24:31 he's improved his game in a short few months. I think he's a player that defensively, him and
24:42 Devontae "Devo" Davis together are going to be really good. Devo has taken on the challenge,
24:51 even as a freshman, to guard the opposing team's best player regardless of that, if that player
24:57 plays the one, two, or the three. And oftentimes Devo's assigned to the power forward if need be.
25:03 And now he's got another partner to try to, you know, it's really hard, man. When you assign a
25:13 guy the best player on the other team and he's holding that guy under his average and the bulk
25:19 of the plays are run at you and you're fighting off screens, you're on an island on isolations,
25:23 what Devo's done defensively is insane. I mean, he really only had one game last year where I felt
25:32 like the offensive player, I mean that means he won 29 battles and he was basically 29 and one in
25:38 his individual matchups. And I think that T-Mark can do the same thing for us, which, you know,
25:44 let's face it, college basketball premier scores are usually the point guard, off guard, or small
25:50 forward. With the exception of certain teams, you know, where Mississippi State's going to throw
25:55 the ball into Tulu Smith and you got a big, but for the most part, if you generalized one, two,
26:02 and three and now we got two guys that play two of those three positions that are incredible
26:07 defenders from an individual standpoint. And then Davenport really shoot the basketball,
26:11 got great range, can play the three, can if we want to go small ball, can play some four.
26:18 You know, so he's given us a stretch the floor type player that we
26:23 look at our numbers, we obviously needed.
26:26 Mus, going back to recruiting, but the five returnees, how important, it kind of gets
26:33 overlooked, retention. I mean, I consider Brazil and Devo bookend five-star recruiting prizes when
26:40 you look at it from a retention standpoint. Can you talk about how that's helped the whole thing
26:45 internally when you do bring in a total of nine newcomers, even with five returnees?
26:49 Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at college football, if you look at college baseball,
26:55 if you look at college basketball, there's a lot of starters, there's a lot of top three scores
27:04 off teams in Power Five that are transferring. You know, we have not had that. You know,
27:13 J.D. Note, you know, he elected to go pro a year before his eligibility, but he did not elect to
27:20 transfer and leave Arkansas. Adise Toney elected to go pro with a year of eligibility, but he did
27:28 not transfer. So we have not had anybody, you know, walk into my office at the end of the year,
27:38 like a TB or a Devo, and decide that somewhere else, you know, and we've been very, very lucky
27:47 from that aspect to not have a starter that's a top two player or top, because it happens in
27:56 every sport. And so the impact, Kevin, that those guys have for us right now, words can't describe.
28:04 You know, TB's on the side, coaching players, and Devo, I said our team had one bad practice.
28:11 Devo's had one bad practice all year. That's a lot of practices with only, you know, over,
28:17 you go eight out of your ten weeks and he had one bad practice. And I'm assuming that bad practice,
28:24 we had a team, was probably the one that he had a bad practice. So having those guys back,
28:31 even Cade and Lawson, like those guys are, it has a big impact when you try to demonstrate
28:39 something and you have players jump out there and demonstrate it. It just, it changes your culture.
28:45 And all the guys that are, you know, same with Joseph, like, I mean, he knows exactly
28:51 what we want and he can go out and show, verbalize, and show just by doing what's asked of him.
29:00 Nice coach.
29:01 Before Mike rushes me off, anybody else got anything or are we good?
29:04 We're good? All right, Mike, you've good timing.
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