HHoping to bounce back from its first loss of the season, the No. 20 Arkansas basketball team will take the court in the Bahamas on Wednesday night to battle Stanford in the first round of the annual Battle for Atlantis tournament.
After opening the season with three straight wins, the Razorbacks fell behind early and never regained its footing in a 78-72 loss to UNC Greensboro on Friday night.
“We have to be way more physical defensive rebounding the basketball,” Arkansas Head Coach Eric Musselman said. “Way more physical. I mean, we’re going to be playing against teams that are much bigger, much stronger, much more athletic.”
In addition to the Hogs and Cardinal, the impressive list of tournament participants includes No. 14 North Carolina, Michigan, Memphis, Texas Teck, Northern Iowa and Villanova. If the Razorbacks win, they will play the winner of the Memphis-Michigan game at 4 p.m. CT on Wednesday. If they lose, they will play the loser of that game at 6:30 p.m.
This will be the third time that Arkansas has met Stanford on the basketball court. The Cardinal has won the two previous matchups, including a 69-66 win in the semifinals of the 2015 NIT Tournament. Stanford also defeated the Hogs 60-53 in the 1948 San Francisco Tournament.
This will be the second year in a row that the Razorbacks have traveled overseas to play in a holiday tournament, having gone 2-1 in Hawaii’s Maui Invitational last season.
“This is an awesome tournament, the field is so strong,” Musselman said from the Bahamas on Monday. “It’s one of the premiere events in the country.”
Stanford also enters the contest at 3-1, with wins over Cal State Northridge, Sacramento State and Eastern Washington, but suffered an 89-77 loss to Santa Clara on Nov. 14.
“They really execute,” Musselman said of the Cardinal. “They do a really good job in knowing when to slip screens. They have some good shooters and have some experience on their roster.”
But it’s his own team Musselman is more concerned with, especially improving on defense, where the Hogs have struggled the past two games, including in a tight 86-77 win over Old Dominion.
“We have to make adjustments,” coach Eric Musselman said. “We can’t keep doing the same thing, because every team’s personality — every team’s personnel strengths and weaknesses — are different. I’ve got to come up with a little bit different scheme than what we’ve seen thus far. And we will. Whether it works or not, I don’t know.”
Arkansas has been led by a core of seniors and graduate transfers, who are still learning to play together and still getting a grasp of Musselman’s desired gameplan.
Temple graduate transfer Khalif Battle leads the team in scoring with 16.5 points per game, hitting 47 percent from three, despite not starting any of the games. Houston transfer Tramon Mark is averaging 14.5 points and Louisville Transfer El Ellis is knocking down 14.3 points and nearly four assists per game.
The game will tip off at 6:30 p.m. CT and will air live on ESPNU.