Musselman gets what Hogs’ coaches for nearly 20 years haven’t

Eric Musselman probably wasn’t taking an intentional shot, but the most important takeaway from his press conference Thursday wasn’t about a glorified practice at Barnhill Arena, but scheduling games.

And the goal of that, especially in the preseason.

“We really don’t want to play anybody that’s not a top team in their own conference when you talk about teams outside of Power 5 (conferences),” he said talking about the scheduling. “We’re trying to play people that will challenge us for SEC play.”

As he said later, he’s not trying to get to 22 wins. He’s done that before and it didn’t work out well.

For nearly 20 years now, that has appeared to be the operating philosophy of Razorback coaches and they simply haven’t been ready to make much of a tournament run come March.

Once again, he shows things are going to be different.

Musselman has been a head coach at the Power 5 level and he knows full well if you’re not playing one of the better teams, you’re not getting much more than a chance for the band to play and to sell some popcorn.

“We want to challenge ourselves,” he said. “Our philosophy is not to pile up wins. Our philosophy is how do we become better as the season progresses.”

Somebody finally seems to get the way the world of college basketball works these days. You don’t have to be in a Power 5 conference to make a run in March.

Musselman did that at Nevada. As Eddie Sutton and Nolan Richardson used to say back when the Hogs could play a second weekend in the NCAA, there aren’t any bad teams there so you better be ready.

It honestly has looked at times for nearly 20 years the Hogs waited until the postseason for a challenge out of the league. The early schedule was for piling up wins.

These days, the SEC schedule is tough and Musselman wants to be ready for that in addition to the postseason.

“We’re trying to play people that will challenge us for SEC play,” he said.

The premise for the press conference was announcing the Red-White game will be played at Barnhill Arena on October 5 at 3 p.m. The doors will open at 1:30 and admission is free.

It will basically be a scrimmage on a floor with tape for the boundaries and temporary goals.

“We’re not going to be doing tomahawk dunks,” he said.

Before scheduling the game, he reached out to Richardson about his idea.

“I wanted to make sure he thought it was a good idea … and he certainly did,” he said. “He talked about a lot of the things that he had done in the past from a marketing standpoint.

“We’re going to reach out to as many players as we can and invite them back. Without question that’s something we’re going to start doing as early as next week.”

It appears Musselman gets “it.”

In every sport, the coaches that understand “it” is selling their program and what they’re doing to fans seem to have success.

Sutton and Richardson understood “it.” Three others since those two built a wildly successful program didn’t get it.

Which, ultimately, is why the last three aren’t here and Musselman is.

And it appears he actually gets “it.”