Eric Musselman undergoes surgery, will miss multiple games

Arkansas Razorbacks basketball coach Eric Musselman underwent successful left shoulder surgery, repairing a full tear of the supraspinatus tendon and partial tears to the infraspinatus and subscapularis tendons, per a school press release. Assistant coach Keith Smart will serve as interim head coach in his absence over at least two games, which starts at LSU and includes a home game against South Carolina.

Eric Musselman required the surgery, which he attempted to put off, after a practice collision with transfer forward Trey Wade six weeks ago. Wade, the player who fell on Musselman, is a senior for the Razorbacks. After averaging more than 20 minutes per game the past two seasons, he has seen that number decrease to just 8.2 this year.

The team doctor released a statement on Musselman’s injury and subsequent surgery within the press release.

“An MRI confirmed his shoulder had torn tendons and would require surgery,” the statement read. “The goal was to use daily physical therapy and treatment as well as a steroid injection to delay the surgery as many weeks as we could, none of which have offered any significant improvement. At this time, surgery to repair the tears were necessary due to the amount of pain and instability he was experiencing and to mitigate the risk for significant complications in the future. Coach Musselman is expected to do very well and ultimately make a full recovery.”

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Musselman is in his third year with the Razorbacks, having led them to at least 20 victories in each of his first two seasons. After the NCAA Tournament was postponed in 2020, he got the team in the following season. A three seed, Arkansas got all the way to the Elite Eight before falling to eventual champion Baylor.

Prior to arriving in Fayetteville, he spent four seasons with the Nevada Wolfpack. He was just as successful there, leading them to 20 wins every season he was coach. Nevada made three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances from 2017-19 under Musselman.

He has become known for his liberal use of the transfer portal in building a roster each season, but his 2022 recruiting class ranks No. 5 in the country according to the On3 consensus rankings with two five-star commitments and five total signees.

In the meantime however, he hopes that Wednesday’s blowout win can get the Razorbacks back on track after two bad losses to open SEC play against Vanderbilt and Texas A&M.