Eric Musselman details what he has seen from Missouri on film recently

Eric Musselman isn’t overlooking Missouri. On Thursday, the Arkansas head coach praised the Tigers’ talent ahead of Arkansas matchup against them on Saturday.

“They have experience coming back,” Musselman said. “Sean East didn’t play for a couple games. He’s back and he changes things for them. Their record is not indicative of who they are, based on an injury to a really talented player in Sean East.”

Missouri’s record certainly isn’t imposing. The Tigers are 0-13 in conference play, most recently falling in 67-62 to No. 5 Tennessee. Before that, Missouri fell three points short of upsetting Ole Miss. The Tigers are on the edge of a breakthrough.

East’s return only catalyzes Missouri’s impending conference win. The 6-foot-3 graduate student first returned against Ole Miss after being out since Missouri’s matchup against Vanderbilt on Feb. 3. He didn’t let his return go to waste.

In the narrow loss, East tallied a team-high 25 points and six assists while shooting 6-9 from the field. In the Tigers’ loss against Tennessee on Wednesday, East exploded again for 24 points, six assists and four rebounds.

Missouri is more than one man

He isn’t the only player Musselman believes poses a threat to the Razorbacks.

“[Nick] Honor, No. 10; No. 55, East; No. 35, Noah Carter — Those three guys have been starters in this league. That’s a really good nucleus,” Musselman said. “[Aidan] Shaw’s got experience. Obviously, Connor Vanover has got experience. And then, a guy that is as good as any newcomer in the league is [Tamar] Bates from Indiana. That was a great pickup for them out of the portal.

“That’s a talented team. We’ve got to bring our A-game. We’ve got to have good transition defense. We got to do a good job taking care of the basketball. We’ve got to understand East and Bates are primary scorers for them. And and we’ve got to try to do a good job on it.”

Arkansas isn’t exactly riding high into the matchup. On Tuesday, the Razorbacks picked up only their third conference win of the season with a 78-71 triumph over Texas A&M. After the win, Eric Musselman assured fans that the Razorbacks aren’t giving up.

“Hopefully we continue to improve, continue to get better,” Musselman said. “But behind closed doors everyone is working extremely hard. We had not a good shootaround, but a phenomenal shootaround today.

“Sometimes when you’re struggling it’s hard to have the energy and enthusiasm, but I think the staff and the players have done a great job of continuing to try to get better, and I thought tonight was reflection of a team that is getting better.”