The University of Southern California was set to officially announc Eric Musselman as next Trojans basketball coach at a press conference Thursday, according to multiple reports, ending a short courtship and bringing the Arkansas basketball saga to a fitting end.
Musselman, who spent the last five seasons coaching the Razorbacks, took Arkansas to two straight Elite Eights in 2021 and 2022 and a Sweet 16 in 2023. But after striking gold in the transfer portal those seasons, the players the Razorbacks picked up ahead of the 2023-24 season didn’t met the threshold set by classes previous and Arkansas stumbled to its worst record in more than a decade.
The Razorbacks suffered two of their worst losses in school history this year, including setting a building record inside Bud Walton Arena for margin of defeat. Musselman was left speechless multiple times after games and spurious allegations about his players boiled any limited chemistry the roster may have otherwise built.
Musselman was not his usual social-media-posting self after Arkansas’ season ended. He was doing silly, fun recruiting videos or even serious posts about such things. He was silent and when athletic director Hunter Yurachek posted video last week suggesting Musselman was going to be coming back, the primrose path was lain.
USC had become one of the better teams in the Pac-12 during the same time Arkansas did the same in the SEC with Musselman. Both teams had equally disappointing winters this year, though, and coach Andy Enfield was out of Los Angeles for Dallas, taking the job at SMU.
Musselman was expected to be officially introduced at USC on Thursday night.