Eric Musselman reacts to streaking Arkansas topping Kentucky

Arkansas continued its surge in the SEC, picking up a huge victory over Kentucky inside Bud Walton Arena on Saturday. The win was the fourth in a row for the Razorbacks, who now sit at 23-6 overall and 12-4 against SEC opponents. Following the victory over Kentucky, Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman was fired up, and he pointed out the tough schedule that his team has had to face in the midst of all of the recent success.

“I mean I’ve just been so impressed with the way the way that we played throughout this whole streak,” Musselman said after Arkansas beat Kentucky. “When we struggled early, we talked about trying to get hot at the right time. We have two games left obviously in the regular season. Three or four weeks ago, everybody was talking about our schedule, and we still have two incredibly tough games. One at home, one on the road. But what the group has done is they weathered a really, really tough schedule. And not only did they kind of weather it, but they dominated it by winning basketball games quite frankly against some incredible teams.

“The Kentucky team can win a national championship. The Tennessee team can win a national championship, they’re Final Four caliber. We’ve played some really tough teams. Auburn is a team that could win a national championship. So we knew that the schedule was really, really hard towards the end of the season.”

Arkansas started the year 9-0 before dropping two of its next three to fall to 10-2 entering SEC play. The Razorbacks then lost their first three games against SEC opponents, falling to 10-5. But since then, Arkansas has won 13 of its last 14 games after the win over Kentucky, and as Musselman said, a lot of those wins came against some of the better teams in the country.

Musselman is impressed with how Arkansas has put games behind them

Arkansas has two games remaining. The Razorbacks host LSU on Wednesday night before hitting the road for a trip to Tennessee to wrap up the regular season on Saturday. If Musselman has learned anything from his team this year, it’s that Arkansas will be very well prepared for those games, and his team won’t be focused on Saturday’s big upset over Kentucky.

“The most impressive thing is you win a big game, whether it be Auburn or Tennessee, and you come back and you’re ready for the next game,” said Musselman. “They’re still student athletes, like these are not grown, professional athletes. The mental toughness of putting a game behind and coming back. Same thing, we lost at Alabama and we thought we played really well. We just lost. They didn’t listen to any outside noise, they got ready for the next game and it’s hard to do for college players night after night after night towards the end of a long season with a limited – you know we’re not playing a lot of guys. And they got great toughness. They’re in a great groove as well.”

Arkansas is now in a three-way tie for second place in the SEC. The Razorbacks sit alongside Kentucky and Tennessee, trailing Auburn by one game.