Eric Musselman breaks down challenges Duke brings

Arkansas has dropped their last two games of their non-conference schedule early in the season, falling to Memphis and most recently No. 14 North Carolina. But unfortunately for the Razorbacks, things will not get much easier for them as they face No. 7 Duke in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Wednesday night.

There’s no question that early in the season the Blue Devils are one of the nation’s top teams, suffering just one loss to Arizona. And on Wednesday, Razorbacks head coach Eric Musselman spoke about what makes Duke so special ahead of their matchup.

“Obviously Duke is one of the best teams in the country,” Musselman admitted. “You look at this team and their center is a lottery pick. [Tyrese] Proctor, one of their guard/wings, is a lottery pick. So we’re playing against two lottery picks, and number one, [Caleb] Foster, is a early mid-20 type pick based on mock drafts.”

Center Kyle Filipowski leads the charge for Duke with his 18.8 points, 8 rebounds, 1.2 steals, and 1.7 blocks per game which currently leads all Blue Devils on the roster. And him paired with NBA-caliber pieces in the backcourt plus Duke’s combination of veterans and young talent make them one of the most dangerous teams in the country.

“So we’re playing against three draft picks that’ll all happen probably before 20. So we’re playing against a really good basketball team with some guys that made a decision to come back and play college basketball. They’ve got some guys on their team that would’ve been first round picks last year and they came back to get better,” Musselman explain.

Duke has been solid all season, shooting 50.7% from the field with while averaging 84 points a game and holding opponents to just 64.2 points per game. But the Razorbacks will need to tend to their own garden as well if they want to defeat the Blue Devils at home in Fayetteville.

“We need some better performances individually, both sides of the basketball,” Musselman said. “We’re fouling way too much off the ball, we’ve broken down our fouls per minute. We’re not creating nearly the amount of steals, I mean Joseph Pinion has played very very limited minutes and has similar steals to some of our guys that have played over 100 minutes more than him.”

“Gotta do a better job defending without fouling and got to create more offense through our defense. Now I don’t know, maybe the personnel is not gonna work doing that, but we have to get a lot better than what we have been in those two areas for sure.”

Arkansas and Duke tip off on Wednesday at 9:15 p.m. ET in the ACC/SEC Challenge presented by Continental Tire airing on ESPN.