Eric Musselman explains why Arkansas played zone defense for first time

Eric Musselman was forced to use his last resort. In Arkansas‘ 90-68 loss to Florida on Saturday, the Razorbacks’ head coach switched to a zone defense midway through the first half.

For any Musselman disciples, the move was stunning. Musselman has long been a vocal proponent of man-to-man defense. After the game, the 59-year-old head coach revealed the thought process behind his uncharacteristic decision.

“I haven’t played zone at all since I’ve been in college, but we’re not guarding anybody one-on-one,” Musselman said. “So the thought process was to put zone in yesterday to try and help us with dribble-drives. It helped for a little bit as a change of pace… Maybe slowed Florida down for a little bit.”

Obviously, it didn’t slow the Gators down for long. In the victory, Florida shot 49.3% from the floor and 36% from beyond the arc. Worse, when Arkansas did force a miss, it couldn’t come away with a rebound. Florida snagged 17 more rebounds than the Razorbacks in the SEC matchup.

Arkansas’ defensive struggles are nothing new. The Razorbacks are on a three-game spiral, losing by an average margin of 21.3 points per game. Arkansas is currently allowing 77.6 points per contest, ranking No. 312 in the country. Not ideal.

Despite Arkansas’ consistent shortcomings on the defensive end, Musselman isn’t ready to give up on his Razorbacks.

“You’ve got to be able to guard either the guy in your area or the guy you’re assigned to,” Musselman said. “We gave up nine threes the other night playing Georgia when we were man to man. We went zone tonight and gave up nine threes…This group just has not grasped concepts.

“We have a lot of holes in a lot of different areas. So our job as a staff will be to continue to do what we can, try to provide teaching points… Continue to try to get guys better.”

Eric Musselman refuses to accept mediocrity

With the loss, Arkansas is now 9-7 this season and 0-3 in conference play. With matchups against Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Kentucky ahead, things will only get harder for the Razorbacks. After Arkansas’ loss to Auburn last week, Musselman challenged his players to step up to the task in front of them.

“This team has not resembled what we built the last four years from a competitive standpoint, from a defensive standpoint, from a loose-ball-getting standpoint,” Musselman said. “What are we going to do? We’ve got to try to figure it out as much as we can. Guys got opportunities and didn’t seize the opportunities.

“We built something that I thought was really special and this group of guys has not carried on the tradition, so we’ve got to try to continue to get as best we can with the group we have right now.”