Eric Musselman looks to use Kentucky loss to catapult Arkansas to strong finish

At 14-15 and 5-11 in the SEC, it has been a much longer season for Arkansas than anyone anticipated. Still, although they’ve dropped their last two, Eric Musselman is still seeing growth from his ‘Hogs that suggests that they can close the campaign on the right note.

Musselman assessed where the Razorbacks are heading into their final two regular-season games in his press conference after their loss in Lexington this past weekend. He said that season-long development has always been his focus and what he’s looking for from his teams.

“Yeah, I mean, every coach that I’ve worked for? Your job is to try to continue to improve throughout the year,” said Musselman.

Even though the final scores wouldn’t suggest it, Musselman thinks Arkansas is doing exactly that. To start, he looked at their 85-82 defeat to Vanderbilt at home last week. While facing a double-digit deficit to the Commodores wasn’t a good thing at all, he credited his players for making a run at it in the final minutes.

“We did not play very well at all against Vanderbilt. But we were down double digits and came back, fought, and gave ourselves a chance to put the game in overtime,” explained Musselman. “Although we played poor basketball in that game, we showed some life towards the end of the game.”

Then, up next, Musselman saw that carry over to their 111-102 loss at Kentucky over the weekend. After going back and forth and facing some deficits, Arkansas went on to earn a nine-point advantage in the second half. While they didn’t hold on, that effort alone, under those circumstances, is what brought out pride in Musselman nonetheless.

“Again, yeah, are we making progress? Today, we made progress – yes,” Musselman said. “We played our best offense, did a great job focusing on the foul line in a very tough environment. Defensively, we weren’t that good but this team has done that to other teams, especially in their own building. We had a chance to beat a team that has a chance to win the national championship.”

“Did we lose? Absolutely. All the credit goes to Coach Calipari and Kentucky. But, in that locker room that we represent, I’m extremely proud to be associated with their effort and the way they battled tonight,” said Musselman. “That’s all you can ask of a group of young men. That’s what they went out and did tonight.”

Arkansas can still finish above .500 overall and could technically still avoid playing on the opening night of the SEC Tournament depending on how they play versus LSU on Tuesday and at Alabama on Saturday. If they’re going to finish that way, though, it’s going to take a continuation of that effort that Musselman saw from his ‘Hogs over their past week.