Arkansas Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman's complete press conference after offense explodes in win over UNC Wilmington on Saturday evening.
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00:00 really talented team. I mean, they have two high, high level players. And, you know, I thought we
00:07 did a really, really good job for most of the game, defensively. Obviously, got to get better
00:16 defensive rebounding. And, you know, it's a good way to end the non-conference. And obviously,
00:23 you know, we see the impact that Keon can have. And we're a different team with his energy out
00:31 there and his basketball IQ. And, you know, we missed him the games that he wasn't a part of our
00:37 team. You know, we recruited him with the thought that he could score. And also, I didn't think he
00:45 hunted his shots tonight, which you really don't say that about a player that scored 32. I thought
00:50 all of his shots were great. 17 free throws attempted is a lot. This game took on a, you
00:58 know, a different meaning than, you know, like how we played was a little bit different based
01:04 on matchups and so on and so forth. But really pleased with our offense and want to continue
01:09 to get better defensively, although we knew that this team was a really, really good offensive team
01:13 that we played tonight. And super excited about only eight assists and only two in the second
01:20 half. So really excited about how we took care of the ball against a team that does, you know,
01:24 create turnovers. I said, yeah, my fault. That's what happens when you get old.
01:31 You mentioned Keon scoring, but he also had five assists. I think at least three of them were the
01:35 lobs. Is it surprised you at all that he has that timing down with the teammates? I think
01:39 a couple of weeks ago, you said he was working primarily with the scout team.
01:42 Yeah, I think he's just, you know, he's just an innate baller, you know, like, I mean,
01:48 probably, you know, you could probably throw him on any team tomorrow, you know, and he would figure
01:54 it out. He's just, you know, sometimes there's guys like that, that like he's got unbelievable
02:01 court awareness. We need him to practice a little bit harder. We need him to, you know, to improve
02:07 in some areas, but his teammates really like him, like they like playing with him. And you can see
02:14 that. And we like coaching him. He's got a great spirit about himself. And yeah, the assists both
02:22 with him and I thought Devo played great. I thought T-Mark played great. I thought they were
02:27 really efficient, but Devo's six assists and Keon's five, 11 out of that spot, you know, important for
02:34 us. When you look at what Keon's brought to the table in terms of starting the second half in the
02:43 previous game, and then starting both halves of this game, 161 points your team scored. I noticed
02:48 the quick twitch, shiftiness and be able to get numbers advantage. He gets by the first guy and
02:53 now your spacing's good. All of a sudden, what dynamic other than just his point production or
02:58 stats is he bringing in terms of spacing and pace? Well, he just played, you know, he's so quick with
03:04 the ball and he's got great basketball IQ. He sees plays before they happen, which, you know,
03:11 back to Hutch's thing on the lobs, you know, I think he just naturally sees plays develop,
03:18 you know, and we felt that way when we recruited him. I was kind of amazed for a freshman, the way
03:24 that he could read the second, third line of the defense. And he's really good in transition too.
03:30 So, I mean, he does make us a much different team that plays with much different pace.
03:35 And then follow up on the hustle plays. I know that's been maybe problematic in previous games,
03:42 maybe some trouble areas at some spots, but it seemed like just getting on the offensive
03:46 glass earlier, diving to the floor. What did you see out there? Maybe it was different than previous.
03:50 Yeah, I thought we played with great energy. I thought we played with loose ball awareness.
03:57 You know, they, I mean, they take 28-3, so there's, you know, there's going to be some
04:01 long rebounds and stuff. And certainly their backup center, number 23, you know, he had six
04:07 0 boards, but, you know, we got to do a better job in that area. But, you know, coming into the game,
04:14 I mean, if you would have said we scored 106 points and won by 16, you know, I think that
04:19 we would have signed up for it, you know. Did you know that was the largest winning margin
04:24 since Gardner-Webb in game two? I don't know if you're aware of that. Y'all won that by 18.
04:27 Yeah, I mean, I think because we played, you know, we played tonight,
04:32 Kevin, you know, for the most part, 40 minutes, you know. And, you know, I think this team is,
04:41 you know, I've said it over and over that this team really practices hard.
04:46 And this team has great shoot-arounds. And I think that the second half of the last game,
04:54 and then tonight, you know, I think we played, you know, the last 60 minutes has probably been
04:59 our best basketball of the year, other than the 40 minutes against Duke. So I think we're moving
05:05 and trending in the right direction. And now obviously things change, you know, big game
05:11 on Saturday against Auburn. And, you know, I would expect this place to be absolutely bedlam,
05:18 would expect it to be sold out and expect incredible energy in the building in Bud Walton
05:25 on next Saturday afternoon, which is going to be, you know, our guys will be excited to play
05:29 in that environment and we'll all want to be a part of, you know, the start of SEC play.
05:35 Eric, before I forget, how's KB doing and what happened to him exactly? Was it ankle, knee?
05:41 Yeah, he's spraying his ankle. Yeah, I think, I mean, he was deemed available if needed.
05:49 Feel like he'll be okay for Auburn? Yeah, I mean, I think if they, you know, told me at halftime,
05:55 he's available if needed, I would expect him to be ready to go on Monday. Okay. And then could
05:59 be wrong. I've been wrong a lot. Well, sometimes stuff swells up. I don't know. I'm not a doctor.
06:03 You know, Keon, I know everybody knows he was good. Otherwise you would have brought him in,
06:09 but get 32 points in his third game. Just how impressive is that? Yeah, I mean, I think he's,
06:15 it's been important for him to sit and watch, see where we have some areas that we could get better
06:21 at. Like I said, I mean, his teammates body language, like they're looking for him, you know?
06:30 And so I think the confidence level that the teammates have with him is much more important
06:36 than the confidence that I have with him. Those guys, those other four guys out on the floor,
06:42 they want to play with them. They like to play with them. And, and I think that's a big,
06:45 a big part of any point guard, quarterback, catcher and base, like all those things are
06:50 important when you're kind of in a leadership position. And then could you know, Devo,
06:56 he had points, rebounds, assists, steals, really filled up the box. Could you expand a little bit
07:00 more on your thoughts on his all around game? Jalen Graham, I think had a season if you could
07:04 talk a little bit about about Jalen. Jalen Graham was great tonight. I really did. I mean, he,
07:10 I mean, he's a, he's such a really, really special offensive player. I thought tonight he did a,
07:14 an admiral job on the glass. He had six boards, you know, so thought he did a good job rebounding.
07:22 He knocked down both his free throws. Free throw percentage has been a little bit problematic
07:27 because he does have the ability to draw FTAs, but thought he played really well. Thought he
07:33 played within himself. You know, he's seven of 11 from the field. Two of them could have,
07:37 they kind of rolled around off the lip of the rim and could have gone in.
07:40 Thought he played a really, really solid game. And then Devo was, you know, it was his best game
07:48 of the year. I mean, he, the assists were really important, especially when Keon was scoring the
07:53 ball. We needed another distributor. He did that. You know, this is the time of year that Devo
07:59 elevates his game for whatever reason. He's got some biological clock that says, all right,
08:04 it's getting close to January 1. I got eight weeks to play and turn it up. So hopefully,
08:10 you know, he did it a game earlier than last year.
08:14 A couple of weeks ago, coach, you kind of, you mentioned how you were disappointed with the
08:20 team's pace of play and over, especially over the past three halves of basketball, that's gone up.
08:24 Keon's the obvious starting point, but I'm wondering, is there anything else you've seen
08:28 from the team that's kind of contributed to the pace being at a higher level and something you
08:32 want? Yeah, we've been showing a lot of NBA clips pre-practice, just of teams running,
08:37 teams playing with pace, teams moving the basketball, sharing the ball. We had to do
08:42 that a couple of years ago, right around this time. And then, you know, we added our opportunity
08:49 break that we did not have in. You know, for whatever reason, we didn't put that offense in
08:57 right away. I think that's helped us as well, just the point guard kicking ahead. And it's,
09:02 you know, an early offense that the Spurs ran with Tony Parker for many years. And how much does that
09:10 pace kind of correlate with, you know, the assist numbers going up and the turnovers going down?
09:15 Yeah, I think when you're playing out a secondary break, which is what we call our
09:19 opportunity break, and then we added our open offense. You know, open offense is a five-man
09:25 passing game, get the ball out of your hands in point two. I think that's helped our assist
09:29 go up. And I think it's helped our scoring go up when the ball has eyes and you allow the game to,
09:34 you share the game. I think we've been sharing the game much better than we did earlier.
09:39 Eric, would you believe me if I said that this was the first game D'Evo's had multiple steals
09:45 this season? Yes. The reason I would believe it, Scott, is because, I mean, I told him the other
09:51 night, if you do not have one steal in the first half, you and I are going to have a serious
09:55 conversation at halftime. And he didn't have a steal. So, I mean, the three is what he should
10:02 have because he's just too good defensively and he's got too good of anticipation. So,
10:08 that's an area that we need him, we want him jumping passing lanes. And, you know,
10:15 the three steals were huge tonight. And that kind of leads into my next question. There was a
10:19 sequence where he had really good anticipation to get a steal, maybe on a post-entry transition
10:25 layup. Does that, that seems like him, like vintage him, maybe? Yeah, I mean, he's done a great job
10:30 guarding the post. I mean, I thought tonight in the limited, you know, we played pick and roll
10:35 coverages three different ways tonight. I was really, really happy with what we did defensively
10:40 in pick and rolls. Super happy. You know, we went plan A, plan B, plan C, and we did a really good
10:48 job. I mean, you know, Phillips had a, he had a phenomenal game. You know, he's, I think he came
10:56 into the game with one made three. And our game plan was to try to get him to make, or take,
11:03 I shouldn't say make, take as many threes as we could get him to take. And he went three for four,
11:08 but you know, you live with that. But that was a game plan was to try to get him to,
11:15 you know, to not shoot mid-range and not shoot layups. And he did a great job knocking him down,
11:20 but the coverage, even though what might look like to a fan, well, the guy made three or four
11:26 from three, well, the guy was a game plan, was to try and force him to beat us from over the top
11:31 instead of get to a sweet spot.
11:42 I assume it's a part of the game, but what was the thinking and the reasoning?
11:46 Yeah, we knew that they did it. A lot of it was psychological. All right, you're coming in with
11:53 five, we're coming in with five. And I mean, I can tell you every time they subbed that way
12:00 against Kentucky, 16 something, 12 something, 13 something. And we worked on what we wanted to do.
12:09 And I thought those guys, we told them it's going to be a minute to minute and a half, that's it.
12:14 And I thought the guys came in and, you know, D Harris had a ball that maybe was
12:19 thrown slightly off target, but he had a layup or a dunk potentially. I thought they did a great
12:27 job. You know, we did a good job when White caught the ball with that group, because we,
12:31 that group had completely different rules for two minutes than everybody else.
12:36 Super pleased that they were able to execute it. It didn't have a lot to do with the game,
12:41 but I think our guys liked it. Five guys had a role that they knew coming into the game.
12:47 Joseph knew he was going into the game as soon as they subbed. I said, do not look at me.
12:51 And we worked on it. We practiced it. Our scout team sat at the scorer's table, five sub, we went,
12:57 we talked about matchups. You got to point to your garden. And these are the first three plays you
13:01 run when you're out there. And like I said, I, you know, Harris had, had a, had a, had a dunk on,
13:06 on one of them. So super pleased. That's why we did it. 33 or 43 free throws. Just how big a
13:14 deal was that? Yeah. I mean, it's a big deal. You know, we wanted points in the paint. We wanted
13:21 free throws attempted. We talked about zone one tonight being all paint points. That's what we
13:25 called paint. We scripted the first 11 plays. All 11 were supposed to be zone one shots. We took a
13:33 couple threes that we'll dissect and talk about, you know, on Monday. But the free throws attempt
13:40 in paint points were, was, you know, the game plan coming in. So 43 FTAs, awesome. Converting 33,
13:49 super awesome. 78.7%. And then what'd you think of Tresarian White? I guess he kind of lived up to
13:56 the hype. Awesome. Awesome player. But I was also really happy with, with how we played him.
14:04 I really was. I thought that first half we were phenomenal. He had two field goals. We shrunk the
14:10 floor. We had our hands up, you know, obviously, you know, we got a little bit of a lead and then
14:16 they started going downhill. He started drawing free throws. At that juncture, we just didn't want
14:21 to give up three. So we were hugging up at the three point line that allowed him to dribble
14:26 drive. We were switching everything. So he got some bigs on him and some switches. He did a great
14:31 job, but super incredible basketball players who's got a real knack for drawing fouls.
14:37 That's got one more. And curse Edwin too. I know you guys are practicing hard all week,
14:41 but usually when teams don't play a game in nine days, they show some rust. You guys shot
14:46 the ball. Well, took care of it. Well, I looked, look real sharp to me. Look like, you know,
14:50 you're playing every couple of days or something. When you practice as hard as we did, Bob,
14:55 there's not going to be any rust. Trust me. Okay. Well, that's good.
14:58 I was not worried about rust tonight. I might be Saturday, but not the way we've been practicing.
15:09 I thought he was really important going into the game because they do play small ball and they
15:28 moved their small forward at one juncture in the second half. They took Harden Hayes, number three,
15:34 and moved him from the small forward to the center spot. And at that point we played TB at the center.
15:39 And I think that allowed some extended minutes as well. He likes, he don't like playing the center.
15:44 I can tell you guys that. I mean, he'll look over at me and say, put a center in, put a center and
15:48 get a five man in here. He didn't do that tonight. I think he recognized, you know, how they were
15:53 playing, but I thought he was more active. He had good week of practice, you know, eight boards.
16:01 I thought he played really good.