Musselman Ironing Out Disconnect Between Practice, Games

Author:
Daniel Shi
Updated:
Dec 29, 2023 10:52 AM EST
Original:
Dec 28, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — This team is not struggling. In practice. As Arkansas continues to sort out its identity, the Razorbacks continues to practice well behind closed doors.

"This team has practiced really well," Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman said Thursday morning. "We have great shoot-arounds. We have great practices. Actually, we had a meeting earlier this morning as a staff, and this team practices as well as any team we’ve had since we’ve been at Arkansas."

Musselman knows the Hogs need to figure out why they continue to be discombobulated during games. Despite ranking seventh in the nation in bench points, Arkansas still struggles to find its offensive footing. The Razorbacks needed every one of Tramon Mark and Khalif Battle's 43 points to beat Abilene Christian.

"We want it to correlate to our record," Musselman said. "If you look at our non-conference, it’s not been as much firepower as I hoped. In all seriousness, those two guys scoring off the bench, those numbers are insane. Our bench plus-minus has been great, especially of late. But having said that, we’ve got to put everything together through 40 minutes and we’ve got to figure out a way to generate more wins."

The Razorbacks look to finally put it all together and fast. The non-conference schedule is coming to a close and SEC opponents are waiting in the wings. UNC-Wilmington already has a road win against Kentucky. The Hogs are out of every major NCAA tournament bracket prediction and ranked eighth by KenPom as well as second to last in points allowed per game in the SEC.

The game against UNC-Wilmington is set to tip off Dec. 30 at 4 p.m. It will be broadcast on SEC Network and fuboTV .