Jaylin Williams: We've been disrespected this whole year

Arkansas has put together a stellar season – there’s no question about it. The Razorbacks’ success in the regular season earned them a No. 4 seed for the NCAA Tournament, and Eric Musselman’s team has been able to record three wins in the Big Dance and book a trip to the Elite Eight.

Coming into Thursday night’s Sweet 16 matchup with No. 1 seeded Gonzaga, which was the top overall seed for the entire tournament, Arkansas registered a top-tier performance and earned a 74-68 upset win to extend its season. Despite being 9.5-point underdogs, the Razorbacks were the better team throughout the contest and came out on top.

Following Arkansas’ win, sophomore forward Jaylin Williams met with the media for the postgame press conference and made a strong statement – making it clear that he thinks the Razorbacks have been disrespected all season.

“Yeah, I think we’re being disrespected the whole year,” Williams said. “So, it’s just another thing for us. They gave them an 86% chance to win. We saw that and everything they were saying. We felt like they were dancing before the game. That was disrespect to us.

“We came into the game playing hard and had a chip on our shoulder. … Every game we do, and we played hard for 40 minutes. So, that’s just what we do now.”

Fresh off its big win over Gonzaga, Arkansas and Williams – who scored 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds – are set to face No. 2 seed Duke on Saturday in the Elite Eight. Tipoff is scheduled for 8:49 p.m. ET at the Chase Center in San Francisco, with TBS carrying the national broadcast.

Eric Musselman breaks down Arkansas defensive game plan following Gonzaga upset

Eric Musselman pointed to an emphasis on transition defense as a reason why his Arkansas team was able to come away with the upset win over Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 on Thursday night.

“I thought it’s one of the fastest-paced teams that I’ve ever seen with the push of the ball, but even this morning, we were still working on our transition defense,” Musselman said. “We wanted to take away their long outlet passes. That was something that we picked up on film when [Andrew] Nembhard would get a head of steam, and Au’Diese [Toney] met him really, really early away in the back court, and I thought that really helped.

“And they did a great job of their pitch-ahead sideline and break. We took that away.”

On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.