Eric Musselman details decision to start El Ellis vs. Georgia

Arkansas G El Ellis hadn’t seen any action over the team’s last two games heading into this past weekend. He earned his 12th start of the season in his return, though, because of how he approached the week leading into that contest.

Eric Musselman spoke about his decision to start Ellis against Georgia in his postgame press conference following the 78-75 victory. With no game during the week last week, they had some extra chances on the practice floor as a team. In the end, Ellis was a player that he felt like took full advantage of that time.

“I thought his practice habits were really good,” said Musselman. “Obviously, with no mid-week game, we had a lot of time to adjust a lot of different things. I thought he was extremely focused. So he got the start tonight.”

In 37 minutes, Ellis returned as the Razorbacks’ leading scorer with 15 points. He did so while shooting 6-11 (54.5%) from the field, including 3-6 (50%) from three. The graduate senior also posted five rebounds, three assists, and a season-high of three steals in the win over the Bulldogs.

Musselman noted Ellis’ work defensively, especially considering the 6’3 guard had to defend in a mismatch for a lot of the game.

“El Ellis defended their four for, probably, about 20 to 22 minutes tonight,” Musselman said. “I thought that he did a great job defending the four. We didn’t get hurt in the post at that position at all.”

While Ellis earned the designation, Musselman said that it’s still a part of a greater issue where Arkansas is still sorting out their lineup. However, at this point of the season, he admitted that the ‘Hogs may just have to start answering that question on a game-by-game basis depending on their respective opponent.

“As I said, we’re still trying to search. Now we have nine guaranteed games left and we’re still trying to search. Based on matchups? We might have different lineups,” said Musselman. “That just might be who we are. It’s not what we’ve always done.”

“With this team? It might be matchups,” Musselman said. “Keyon (Menifield) played really good off the bench too and, obviously, Devo (Davis) changes things for us.”

Arkansas, with Ellis playing a key role, did what they needed to do to hold off Georgia. Even so, they still have eight games to go in the regular season over the next month to sort out what they still need to.

“A lot of good things, a lot of things to build off, and a lot of things that we still need to get a lot better at,” Musselman said.