Eric Musselman begs team to recommit to defense in SEC Tournament vs. South Carolina

After engineering a large come-from-behind win over Vanderbilt at the SEC Tournament on Wednesday night, Arkansas was back in action on Wednesday afternoon against South Carolina.

The Razorbacks got out to a solid start, taking an early lead in the first few minutes before running into a little trouble.

“Well obviously when you play with this short a turnaround you’re always worried about the energy,” coach Eric Musselman told the SEC Network’s Marty Smith during the first half. “Obviously knocking down a couple early threes. (Trevon) Brazile with the foul trouble all the sudden.”

South Carolina had pulled ahead by the 10-minute mark in the first half, following an early 11-3 deficit in the game. Both teams were trading blows on either side of Musselman’s brief media appearance, but the head coach posted a few keys for his team.

If Arkansas wants its season to continue, of course, it will need to muster a magical Musselman run in March, winning the SEC Tournament. Otherwise it’ll be relegated to the NIT or CBI.

But there’s plenty of basketball to be played against the Gamecocks first.

“Got to get better shot quality at the other end, and defensively we’ve slipped a little bit the last two minutes,” Musselman said. “Got to get back to defending.”

Arkansas was led by star Khalif Battle in the early going, with Battle having eight points in the first 12 minutes of action. Six different Arkansas players had scored at the time of this writing.

That was also true of South Carolina, which had a team-leading nine points from forward Collin Murray-Boyles.

The Razorbacks opened the SEC Tournament contest with three early 3-point makes, though they will have to contend with two early fouls on Brazile, which could limit the presence in the frontcourt going against a very talented Murray-Boyles.