Tag: Arkansas basketball schedule

Arkansas basketball moves up a spot, inside top 10, in ESPN’s too-early rankings

The Razoracks are going to be a force next year, but have a daunting schedule.

Big things are expected for the Arkansas basketball team this season. Locals know it. National folks do, too.

ESPN’s Jeff Borzello updated his summertime Top 25 for the college basketball world last week and the Razorbacks moved up in the rankings.

Arkansas checked in at No. 9, one spot ahead of its previous No. 10 slotting. It’s enough to make Razorbacks the second highest ranked team in the SEC, behind perennial power Kentucky.

The Top 25 is filled with Arkansas’ opponents for the 2022-23 season, as well. Tennessee is 12th, Auburn is 13th and Alabama is 20th. Creighton and Texas Tech are ninth and 24th, respectively. Arkansas will get one of those teams in the Maui Invitational in November. The Razorbacks will also play No. 8 Baylor in the Big 12/SEC Challenge in the second semester.

Take a look at Borzello’s top 10 below.

Arkansas’ strong nonconference schedule now includes Louisville at Maui Invitational

Arkansas basketball has some tough sledding in the nonconference season in 2022-23.

Arkansas and Louisville have met seen times on the basketball over the two schools’ history.

But the 2022-23 meeting at the Maui Invitational may hold a little something more.

The last time the two met when Arkansas was considering a national powerhouse was in 1996, so it’s been a while. Now the Razorbacks, who are largely expected to be ranked inside the top 15 when polls are released in November, will have a shot at revenge for the 2009-10 team that fell to the Cardinals by 30.

Tip off from the Maui Invitational for the game is at 4 p.m. on November 21. It will air on ESPN2 at 4 p.m. CT. 

The winner of the game will play the winner of Texas Tech and Creighton, while the loser will get the corresponding loser. Ohio State, San Diego State, Cincinnati and Arizona are the other four teams in the bracket. The Blue Jays, Red Raiders, Aztecs and Wildcats are also expected to be Top 25 teams.

Louisville is in the midst of its worst two-year stretch since 1999-2001. The Cardinals went just 13-19 last year, resulting in the exiting of coach Chris Mack in January of the season. Kenny Payne will head into his first year with the team. He was previously an assistant with the New York Knicks.

Musselman on Hogs youth: “Patience is something I don’t have, but I’m learning”

Arkansas basketball is loaded yet again, but it’s also the youngest team Eric Musselman has ever coached.

Two straight Elite Eight appearances have made Arkansas basketball a preferred destination.

Coach Eric Musselman has proven himself one of the best recruiters in the nation, too, allowing the Razorbacks to reload the last two years instead of rebuild. This season, with six freshmen on the roster, his Hogs are as young a team as the coach can remember ever having.

“Patience is something I don’t have, but I’m learning,” Musselman said.

He was half-serious, half-joking. Part of what makes Arkansas such a destination is his attitude. Players want to play for him. But he’s also been known to be short in press conferences after disappointing Arkansas performances, suggesting that, yes, perhaps patience in the locker room could be lacking at times.

If Musselman’s patience holds, this year’s Arkansas team could be his best yet. Three of the Arkansas’ six freshman are five-star players and are expected to go in the first round of next year’s NBA Draft. Guard Nick Smith Jr. could potentially go first overall.

Arkansas opened practice Thursday to the media ahead of a trip to Europe in early August. The Razorbacks will start their regular season in November, though an exact date is not yet known

Report: Arkansas adds San Jose State to schedule

The last time a major sport at Arkansas played San Jose State, things didn’t go well for the Razorbacks.

The Arkansas basketball continued to come into sharper focus on Tuesday.

Less than a week after adding North Dakota State and North Carolina-Asheville to the 2022-23 slate, WholeHogSports reported that the Razorbacks will play San Jose State next season, as well.

The addition of the Spartans provides for five publicly known games for Arkansas: NDSU, UNCA, SJST, Baylor and Oklahoma. The game against the Sooners is a return game in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the game against Baylor is part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

Dates for the games have to be announced, nor have dates for the team’s 18 SEC games, though opponents for the conference portion of the schedule were announced in June.

San Jose State had the weakest season by far among Arkansas’ five nonconference opponents last year. The Spartans went just 8-23 and were 1-17 during Mountain West Conference play in the first year of coach Tim Miles’ tenure.

Report: Arkansas basketball adds two games to upcoming schedule

Arkansas is attempting to bolster its nonconference basketball schedule next season.

Arkansas basketball coach Eric Musselman prefers preparing his teams for the grind of the postseason with as tough a schedule as he can give them.

The addition of two games to the Hogs’ nonconference slate reported Thursday should help.

Per WholeHogSports, Arkansas will play North Dakota State and North Carolina-Asheville this season at Bud Walton Arena.

And while those two teams may not be power-five teams, they’re schools with enough oomph to put a scare into big-time opponents like Arkansas. North Dakota State finished second in the Summit League last year, going 23-10 overall and 13-5 in league play. UNCA has improved each year under coach Mike Morrell and was above .500 playing out of the Big South.

The teams are two of four known opponents for the Razorbacks in nonconference play next year. Arkansas will play Baylor as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge and will play Oklahoma in a rematch of last season’s game at the BOk Center in Tulsa.

The Razorbacks know their SEC opponents, but not yet the dates as the league announced those earlier in July.

Arkansas basketball’s SEC schedule is set and it’s looking good for the Hogs

Arkansas and Kentucky will meet twice during regular season for first time since 2014.

With back-to-back Elite Eight seasons, Arkansas basketball is officially one of the best programs in the country. To keep it up, coach Eric Musselman has brought in six transfers and the No. 2 recruiting class in the country.

Now he and the crew know who they’ll get during a bulk of their schedule.

The SEC released conference opponents for all 14 teams earlier in the week. No dates are stamped, but the release allows teams to prepare for the opposition and fans and media to speculate on outcomes.

Arkansas will likely to picked near the top of the SEC regardless of which teams are on the schedule, but it does appear favorable to the Hogs’ chances.

The Razorbacks will get Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State and Ole Miss in Fayetteville and Auburn, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt on the road. The other five teams in the SEC – Kentucky, LSU, Alabama, Texas A&M and Missouri – are home-and-home series for the Razorbacks.

The 2022-23 season will mark the first year Arkansas and Kentucky have played twice in the regular season since 2014.

Arkansas basketball to play in Europe this fall

With a dozen new players, on-court experience in August will help Arkansas gel faster.

The Arkansas basketball team is headed out on the road in the fall. Way out on the road.

The Razorbacks are headed to Italy and Spain from August 6-16 for a set of four expected exhibition games.

“We will get 10 extra, full practices to prepare for the trip,” Arkansas coach Eric Musselman said. “Second, the ability to play others, not just scrimmage each other, will be critical for this team with so many new faces.”

Arkansas has just two players returning from last year’s roster. Guard Devo Davis and forward Kamani Johnson will help integrate the six freshmen who make up the No. 2 recruiting class in the country. The Hogs are also breaking in six players from the transfer portal.

As such, the games will help the new faces adjust to each other on the court before the season begins in November.

Arkansas will play three games in Spain and one in Italy during the trip, which is the program’s first overseas since the 2016 team went to Spain. The NCAA allows teams one international trip every four years.

Musselman went to Costa Rica in 2017 when he was at Nevada and China in 2013 when he was at Arizona State.

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Arkansas gets rematch with Baylor in this year’s Big 12/SEC Challenge

Arkansas basketball will be looking to get above .500 in the annual challenge.

Arkansas will get a shot at redemption.

The Razorbacks are scheduled to play Baylor, the team that knocked them out of the Elite Eight in the 2020-21 season, as part of the 2022-23 Big 12/SEC Challenge.

It’s one of 10 games on the slate for the challenge in late January. Last year, Arkansas beat West Virginia at Bud Walton Arena, 77-68, as part of the yearly head-to-head between the leagues.

The meeting between the Razorbacks and Bears will be the 145th in the series. Baylor is Arkansas’ fourth most common opponent dating back to their days in the Southwest Conference. The only teams Arkansas has played more are Texas A&M, Texas and Southern Methodist.

Tip for the upcoming season’s game is January 28 in Waco, Texas. Tip time is to-be-determined and the game will air on either ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.

The Hogs are 4-4 all-time in the Big/SEC Challenge. Here’s how history stacks up for them as they seek to get over .500 in the matchup.

Other matchups include Kansas at Kentucky; Texas at Tennessee; TCU at Mississippi State; Alabama at Oklahoma; Auburn at West Virginia; Ole Miss at Oklahoma State; Florida at Kansas State; Iowa State at Missouri; and Texas Tech at LSU.