Eric Musselman: Gritty win over Texas A&M was a 'pretty victory' for Arkansas

Tuesday night’s game against Texas A&M wasn’t exactly easy for Arkansas. The Razorbacks, despite leading by 14 points at halftime, found themselves down to the final second when Tramon Mark hit a step-back jumper to seal a 78-77 victory at Bud Walton Arena.

The numbers weren’t great. Arkansas shot just 39.2% from the field and allowed Texas A&M to take 74 shots. But a win’s a win — even if it’s not “pretty,” per se, as SEC Network’s Dave Neal said.

That is, unless you’re Eric Musselman. Then, it sure looked pretty.

“It’s a pretty victory for us, trust me,” Musselman said after the game. “That was daggone pretty. Let’s make no mistake about it. You can call it whatever you want. I’m calling it a pretty win.”

After Wade Taylor hit a three-pointer to put Texas A&M on top, 77-76, the Aggies called a timeout. That’s when Mark took the ball down the court and headed for the rim — just as he and Musselman talked about in the huddle. When there wasn’t a path for a closer shot, he pulled up.

The shot went in, and Musselman said it had the makings of a turnaround after a rough start to SEC play.

“We talked, seven seconds is an eternity,” Musselman said. “Do not settle for anything inside of 12 feet, try to put pressure on the rim. If not, go for a mid-range pull-up. We go the ball in the ands of the guy we wanted to. Just a phenomenal shot. Look, our team has struggled, for sure. This is where we’ve been every year. We’ll see if we can turn this thing around.

“This was a start in the right direction. Our schedule’s been very difficult, when you look at the teams that we’ve lost to. Very good Texas A&M team, for sure. Super well-coached. In my opinion, one of the toughest teams mentally, one of the toughest teams physically and a great offensive rebounding team. Super proud of our grit. It’s been missing. It came back tonight.”

Eric Musselman: Arkansas was missing its ‘swagger’ before Texas A&M game

Arkansas saw its sizable lead vanish, and the Razorbacks could’ve folded. However, they withstood the charge and got over the hump. Musselman also saw something he wanted to see lately— swagger

“It’s the first time we’ve had a lead in SEC play, in reality,” Musselman said. “And we talked about the swagger when we walked into Bud Walton to play Duke. Even though it was an exhibition game, we walked in against Purdue thinking we were going to win. We haven’t had that swagger.

“And that was basically the theme the last 48 hours is, ‘Man, you’ve got to come in here, you’ve got to believe, you’ve got to have a little bit of swag in your step.’ Not so sure we had it in shootaround, but we brought it today, tonight.”