Eric Musselman assesses Arkansas' toughness compared to past teams

Eric Musselman has coached some successful teams over his time leading the programs at Nevada and Arkansas, but his 2021-22 Razorbacks squad may be one of the most toughest teams he’s ever coached. It’s certainly difficult to argue that, simply because of the way Arkansas has performed this season.

Looking at Musselman’s club, the Razorbacks got off to a 9-0 start to the season but then lost five of six games to fall to 10-5 overall with a 0-3 mark in SEC play. Since then, Arkansas has won 12 of its last 13 outings and is playing strong basketball heading down the stretch of the season.

Following the Razorbacks’ latest win, a 82-74 victory at Florida on Tuesday, Musselman met with the media for his postgame press conference and assessed his team’s toughness compared to past teams he’s coached.

“I think this is a group that really believes that they can win,” Musselman said. “They certainly have great defensive toughness. Yeah, it’s as tough as any team I’ve been around. It’s the belief. I think maybe more so than anything it’s that the way that we’ve improved and kind of flipped the switch – much like last year, where it looked like maybe we were discombobulated, where was the season going to go.

“Both years – if you don’t have high character – it could spin the wrong way when you’ve lost five out of six, and last year with the way we lost at LSU and at Alabama.”

Now 22-6 overall with a 11-4 mark in the SEC, Arkansas – which is ranked No. 18 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll – returns to action Saturday against No. 6 Kentucky at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville. Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET on CBS.

Musselman comments on snapping road losing streak at Florida

Arkansas accomplished a longstanding goal on Tuesday: winning a game at Florida. While it had been 27 years since the Razorbacks’ last victory in Gainesville, they were able to get the monkey off their backs and snapped a 14-game losing streak on the Gators’ home court.

Following Arkansas’ win, head coach Eric Musselman met with the media for his postgame press conference and shared his thoughts on the Razorbacks snapping their road losing streak to Florida – and discussed the overall performance out of his squad.

“We talked about it after the game,” Musselman said of snapping the streak. “We didn’t really talk about it before the game. But none of us were here – it’s a different team. Right now, we’re a really confident team on the road. … I can’t that everybody can see that. We got on the plane with the thought process of winning this game and not being satisfied with how we’ve played. When a team wins at this pace, you’ve got a group that’s not satisfied and a group that’s hungry and wants to continue to get better.”