Eric Musselman Didn't Have a Leader When Hogs Weren't Tough
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — When Arkansas needed a leader Saturday night it became apparent they didn't have anybody tough enough to handle the task.
The Razorbacks played so bad Saturday night, Eric Musselman looked like a combination of bafflement and shock after the 89-81 loss to Hofstra.
"In seven years of coaching college this is the most disappointed I've been about how we played," he said later.
The Pride came into the game with a unique plan to throw a zone at Arkansas and see if they could shoot them out of it.
"They dared us to shoot and in the first half we kept shooting and missing," Musselman said.
The Hogs couldn't play defense or rebound particularly well, either.
"We’ve just got a lot of holes," Musselman said.
Hofstra didn't have its leading scorer Zach Cooks, but a former Razorback picked up the slack.
Abayomi Iyiola picked up the slack with an 18-point, 14-rebound double-double against his former team. Aaron Estrada and Jalen Ray each scored 22 for the Pride.
"Baybay dominated us just off effort," Musselman said. "He out-played every guy on our roster. All you gotta do is pick up a stat sheet."
After a 9-0 start, things have sailed off the rails now with a 22-point loss to Oklahoma last weekend, then stumbling into Simmons Bank Arena without any answers.
"We’ve been searching for point guard play," Musselman said. "Now we’re searching for shooting. Rebounding has been a strength. Tonight we lose on the glass by seven. So again we’ve got to get a lot better.
"We had practice time this week and I thought we had really good practices Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and I told people Thursday’s practice was as bad as I’ve been around.
"Not sure what we’ll do the next two days in preparation for our next game."
The Pride hit the Hogs in the mouth and and nobody seemed particularly interested in doing anything about it. The defense couldn't stop much of anything.
"We didn't keep anybody in front of us," Musselman said. "We gotta have leadership in the locker room."
Maybe the most bitter thing to him was what he said starting off the press conference that was quick and didn't have a lot of positives.
"Hofstra played harder than we played, which is really hard for me to say," he said. "I haven't said that very often as a coach."
Now he's had it happen two games in a row.
"We haven’t had a ball club that didn’t compete for 40 minutes but it’s happened twice now," said Musselman. "We’ve got to get better. I don’t know what else to say. I’d like to give you a magic formula for this thing."
He doesn't have long to figure it out.
The Hogs will host Elon on Tuesday night and Musselman would like to find some defense and some scoring in just a couple of days.
But he needs a leader just as bad.
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