Eric Musselman discusses recent injury woes for Arkansas

Arkansas bounced back from their SEC/Big 12 Challenge loss to Baylor, returning to conference play Tuesday and defeating Texas A&M 81-70 at home. The Razorbacks looked like a well-oiled machine on Tuesday night, especially on the offensive end. But despite looking good, the Razorbacks weren’t feeling good according to head coach Eric Musselman, who spoke about how many of his players have been battling injuries.

“Practice the last couple days has been unique in the fact that Jalen Graham his Achilles is bothering him, he didn’t practice one day. Anthony Black did not practice, we talked and Anthony banged knees and he has a pretty significant contusion,” Musselman said. “We were not sure leading up to the game if he would play and he played 37 minutes and 43 seconds.”

Black wasn’t the only Razorback that played a lot on Tuesday, as Musselman went with a seven-man rotation versus the Aggies that had various players playing extended minutes. Many of those players were also banged up including Makhel Mitchell, who was just one point away from his first double-double of the season despite playing through an ankle injury.

“And then we all know that Makhel’s been battling and playing on what I consider still a very tender and sore ankle,” Musselman said. “But these guys are fighting through injuries, it’s been pretty impressive to me, especially like Anthony not really being able to get many reps between now and our Baylor game. And he was in at 10 o’clock last night getting rehab and so the respect that I have for those guys fighting through stuff.”

Even the team’s leading scorer and the conference’s second-leading scorer Ricky Council had to battle injury trouble at one point as well according to Musselman. He looked more than healthy against the Aggies though, scoring a team-leading 19 points and showing off an impressive reverse dunk in the second half.

“Ricky’s never complained and fought through a really bad back for a three-game segment as well. So guys are playing hard, the locker room tonight was as good as it’s been postgame in a long long time. There was a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of happiness for how Makhel played and I hope that we’re gaining confidence as well,” Musselman said.

Despite Arkansas battling injuries, losing the rebounding battle, and losing the turnover battle significantly versus Texas A&M, they still managed to pull out the victory thanks to their sharpshooting. The Razorbacks shot an impressive 50% from the field with four players scoring in double figures.

The Razorbacks will get a few days of some much-needed rest before their next game on Saturday when they hit the road to face South Carolina at 3:30 p.m. ET in a game airing on SEC Network.