Although Arkansas basketball coach Eric Musselman is extremely intense when it comes to game days, the veteran coach also knows when to lighten the mood to benefit his team.
Musselman has long been known to go into various characters during his pregame rituals to break the ice, after an intense pregame speech.
“The biggest reason we do it is because we want the players to have fun, we want them to laugh and try to take some of the pressure off of playing in front of 20,000 people,” he said during his Eric Musselman Live radio show at Sassy’s Red House Wednesday night. “Because my pregame prep stuff is really intense, and then all of a sudden, I go into character and it lightens the mood.”
He admitted that the locker room before games is “a lot of craziness that no one would really believe.”
Prior to the team’s first exhibition game against UT-Tyler on Oct. 20, Musselman used the school’s elite track & field program to get his point across. He borrowed a track uniform and starting blocks from the track team to go into character.
“The first game I played off the Razorbacks successful track programs,” he said. “I borrowed one of their uniforms, put it on and talked about getting out of the starting blocks, because that was our first opportunity in front of our fans. I talked about how the first step is always as important as any step in a track race, or track meet.”
Prior to Saturday’s 81-77 overtime victory over No. 3 Purdue, the Halloween theme was “effort, energy and enthusiasm,” and collecting as much proverbial “candy” as you can.
Musselman donned the costume of Lil’ Sweet from the Dr. Pepper commercials and put on a show for his players, which seemed to get his point across, with much laughter.
“My dad had always talked to me when I was seven-, eight-, nine-years old, about trying to out-compete everybody to get more candy, about how I had to sprint from door to door. After I had lapped the neighborhood, I’d run in the house and have a quick change of uniform, and put on a different Halloween costume, so that when I went back to a house a second or third time, they didn’t recognize me.”
LAWSON’S ‘INSANE’ WINGSPAN: Although he has coached at the NBA level and the upper echelon of college basketball, Musselman said he doesn’t remember ever coaching another player with the wingspan that 6-foot-8 senior-transfer Chandler Lawson possesses.
Lawson, who transferred in from Memphis this summer, has an enormous wingspan of 7-foot-7, nearly a foot longer than his height.
That enables the forward to often play bigger than what he is, particularly when it comes to blocking shots.
“His wingspan is insane, so that allows him to become a sneaky shot-blocker, because guys think they are by him, then all of a sudden his reach is so long that he has the ability to block their shot once a guy beats him off the bounce,” Musselman said.
Lawson led the team with three blocked shots in the win over Purdue, in addition to collecting 10 points and a pair of rebounds. He also had a team-high two blocks in the Red-White game and in the Hogs’ first exhibition game.
His wingspan came in handy Saturday while guarding the Boilermakers’ 7-foot-4 center Zach Edey, the 2023 National Player of the Year.
After averaging 22.3 points and 12.9 rebounds per game last season, Edey was held to just 15 points and nine rebounds against Arkansas. Although the big man had an eight-inch height advantage on Lawson, his wingspan was only 3 1/2 inches longer.
Musselman also praised the leadership Lawson has brought to the team in such a short period of time.
“His ability to be coachable is amazing – he listens to everything, and knows the gameplan inside out,” Musselman said. “He self-coaches, not only himself, but then he buddy-coaches his teammates. Just a great guy to have on your team.”
NO PRACTICE IN THE “BUD”: Musselman said that the only time the Hogs hit the court in Bud Walton Arena is for a walk-through the day before the game and a shoot-around on game day.
“All week long we go in our practice facility,” he said, referring to the team’s 66,000 square-foot Basketball Performance Center, located across the street from the arena. “Mainly because there are more baskets, but quite frankly, the acoustics are better in the practice site. It’s hard to create energy in a 20,000-seat arena when you practice in there alone. Then you kind of feel like there is no energy.”
He said the change in environment on game days only affects his team in a positive way.
“The background (in Bud Walton) didn’t affect anybody, the 19,000 didn’t affect anybody,” he said. “It actually seemed to elevate our performance. So, I did not feel like we had nervousness, but we will see how that pans out when we have to play a true road game.”
Although he admits that the road environment did affect his young team early last season, he hopes this year’s more veteran squad can quickly adjust.
“I thought last year, especially our game at LSU, I felt that the road crowd affected our team early in conference play, for sure,” he said. “And we will see if affects this year’s team or not. We won’t know that until we play a true road game in SEC play.”
