After Agonizing Month, Maybe Musselman Knows WHAT to Fix

Identifying problems with Razorbacks has been an issue, but now staff may know

Author:
Andy Hodges
Updated:
Dec 23, 2023 10:14 AM EST
Original:
Dec 22, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — There may be a light at the end of the tunnel for Arkansas after all. While Eric Musselman and fans have lost sleep and worried themselves sick, an 83-73 win over Abilene Christian may have at least finally identified what the problems are. Now they just have to see if they can be fixed.

"The worst part is when you can't figure out where you stink at," Musselman said Thursday night. "We all have to get better. So do our players. Our players have got to get in the gym and work on their ball-handling. Not all of them, but we've got some guys that need to work on perimeter skills and to learn how to get open when somebody denies you. We don't have enough guys that understand if I run a dribble handoff to Mike Cawood, he has to set his man up to accept, receive and get open. So, those are areas we are going to continue to work on, talk about and get better at. The good thing is we've identified some areas we have to get better. We very clearly have identified them."

Cawood's the sports information guy handling basketball, who usually stands off to the side during these press conferences looking for carpet patterns or counting ceiling tiles. Musselman has referred to him frequently.

While there may be things the Razorbacks need to improve (there always is), the signs of improvement may have started to show themselves clearly. Tramon Mark and Keyon Menifield in particular Thursday night. Throw Khalif Battle in that group, too, getting 18 points and going 3-for-4 on three-pointers.

"He's going to shoot, which is good," Musselman said of Battle. "He's got a green light. Whether I say it's yellow or red, in his mind he's got a green light. Sometimes that is a really, really good thing."

Battle had been struggling, but he didn't quit shooting. "He definitely didn't lose any confidence," Musselman said. Now if they could get Jeremiah Davenport to start hitting some shots, the Hogs might take off. He hasn't been able to hit water throwing at the ocean lately. That will happen with a shooter. It has with Mark.

"Mike, get him the game ball for the offensive rebounds," Musselman told Cawood. "We would probably have a cake for him tomorrow if we actually practiced to celebrate. Not just one offensive rebound, but two. He was awesome. The pull-up jumper, awesome. Didn’t force any threes. He only took two threes, he makes them both."

There are some other things, too. He delivered a really technical description, which are way too over my head to even try to explain. Something about going to a Milwaukee Bucks' offense or another thing that only basketball nerds can really understand.

Razorbacks Tramon Mark against Abilene Christian — Arkansas Razorbacks guard Tramon Mark after big night against Abilene Christian on Thursday night at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark.
Nelson Chenault / USA TODAY Sports

"We changed our whole offensive concept," Musselman said. "I don't know how to explain it." Then he proceeded to at least make an attempt that would involve a lot of curves and lines if you tried to diagram.

"We ran a lot of three guys east-west where we screen from the middle to the wing," Musselman said. "That guy would curl and then the middle guy would go run into a pick and roll. They struggled with that. Again, that is our Bucks offense. It hasn't been good for us, but it was good for us tonight in the second half. First half, we tried to run stuff and they denied us and we didn't work to get open. It looked pretty bad."