No, Sooners' Game Not 'Must Win,' but Final Step Before SEC
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas coach Eric Musselman knows he can't make every game a "must win" in December. He played that card against Duke last week. Make no mistake, though, the game with Oklahoma this afternoon at 3 p.m. in the BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla., is important. You can watch the game on ESPN2 and fuboTV.
Musselman and his staff are doing evaluations right now. The next three games spread out over the remainder of December are to get (and keep) focus before they open SEC play Jan. 6 at Bud Walton Arena against Auburn.
Fans only want a win over the Sooners. Musselman would probably want to win a game pick which drop of rain down a window faster but wants wins in March more. Whatever happens this afternoon in Tulsa really doesn't mean that much in the overall scope of things that happen come tournament time in terms of wins and losses.
This game is to get another measuring stick of what the focus for practices need to be the rest of the year. In case you're wondering, the Hogs won't be playing in Bud Walton again until Dec. 21.
"I don’t know how anybody can have a true gauge when, as coaches, we don’t really know our team until the end of December," Musselman said this week. "Teams are still trying to figure things out. Coach [Chuck] Daly always used to say in the NBA, you figure out your team about game 50. I don’t know how anybody can figure them out before we’ve even played a game or anyone’s watched a team scrimmage."
All of that came when he was asked about the preseason polls (basically useless) didn't have a lot of respect for Oklahoma. Most basketball coaches don't pay an awful lot of attention to those.
Like nearly every other sport, those are nothing except hypothetical projects based on a lot of factors that chance. Musselman isn't particularly surprised the Sooners are undefeated and on a roll, ranked No. 19 or 22 depending on which weekly guess outside parties have made.
" knew they were going to be good," Musselman said. "The transfers they got were really good players, their returners were really good players and I know [Porter Moser]’s an awesome coach, so that’s a recipe to have a good team. An undefeated team and a ranked team, it’s a game that you have to bring your A-game to compete with Oklahoma."
That's what he's hoping he finds this afternoon in Tulsa. The only wildcard is the status of forward Trevon Brazile, who had a bad ankle sprain. It may be as late as pregame warmups to see how he's moving. It wasn't an optimistic picture from Musselman on Wednesday.
"Severe sprain. Will not participate in anything we do today," Musselman said then. "There's a possibility of him going on an underwater treadmill to walk tomorrow. Not a glowing report. It wasn't something he just woke up the next day and felt fine. We still have some more days before we play, but unable to shoot around or anything today."
If he can't play, Tramon Mark's improvement coming back from an injury in The Bahamas will come into the spotlight. He's the leading scorer and provides a spark defensively they need. Don't worry about a win or a loss. The status of those two guys are going to be much bigger in less than a month.
HOGS FEED:
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RAZORBACKS GET VISIT FROM FBS CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP QUARTERBACK
JEFFERSON NEEDS TO MAKE DECISION, STOP HOLDING HOGS HOSTAGE
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