Kleine remembers forgotten details in first two ‘The Last Dance’ episodes
With the increases in technology the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls may be getting more viewers now with the hoopla surrounding ESPN’s The Last Dance that debuted Sunday night with the first two episodes.
It’s even bringing back things some had forgotten.
“It was even educational to me and I was there,” Former Arkansas player Joe Kleine said Monday morning on ESPN Arkansas’ Morning Rush with Tye Richardson and Tommy Craft. “I thought it was fantastic.”
Like a lot of championship teams there was an undercurrent of dysfunction under the surface that seldom bubbled up into the public eye.
Michael Jordan, without question the greatest player of his era, is obviously the center of attention. Don’t whine at me because I don’t say of all time because I don’t believe you can compare different generations. Too much changes. He would be on the all-time team.
But the drama in that season, the last of six championships for the Bulls over four years surrounded Hamburg native Scottie Pippen, who grew about seven inches and developed into a first-round draft choice at Central Arkansas.
The tension surrounded general manager Jerry Krause, who was basically the hatchet man for owner Jerry Reinsdorf, a crusty guy who managed to take advantage of some real estate tax loopholes to become rich.
Then, as a CPA and lawyer, he refused to re-negotiate contracts and players weren’t going to be able to come back in and get a new deal. That was the sticking point with Pippen and it drove coach Phil Jackson and Jordan crazy.
“That’s the thing they got the most correct,” Kleine said of the drama. “I was wondering how they were going to do that. It was every bit of that.”
Kleine knew none of this coming in. He was a tall role player brought into a team that had just won five championships over seven seasons and going for a sixth. He thought it was paradise.
“You’d hear rumblings of other things on other teams because of contract squabbles,” he said, “but you didn’t know how deep it ran. How contentious and personal things were between the three guys (Jordan, Jackson and Pippen) and management.”
At that point in his career (13th year), Kleine was just playing for a dynasty team.
“I wasn’t very good at that point,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot left in the tank. I feel very, very lucky. To get to be a very small part of that last ride with that crew of players I just sit back and go, ‘how lucky am I?'”
The series will continue airing on Sunday nights with the final two episodes to air May 17.
Bud Light Seltzer Morning Rush Podcast — Moses Moody signs, Joe Kleine joins and more!
Tye & Tommy on the impact of Moses signing, Joe Kleine joins the show, plus football talk with Clay!
Sweet 16 voting is open for the greatest Razorback football game of all time
Two rounds down and we’re now sitting at the Sweet 16 of the Greatest Razorback Football Game of all-time bracket! Now, the match-ups get tougher, and we need your help! Today, we kickoff Sweet 16 voting with the Frank Broyles Region! Make sure to submit your votes below!
Click here to view the full bracket!
Tomorrow (Tuesday), we will begin Sweet 16 voting in the Paul Eells region, and there are some good match ups coming up! Get out there and vote on what you think the Greatest Razorback Football Game of All Time!
Pittman’s handling of crisis may give some clues if you look for them
Barry Odom didn’t wait for a question on Friday’s teleconference and opened it with a monologue that gives some clues to what we’ve said about Sam Pittman taking control of football at Arkansas.
“We’ve gotten a lot better as an organization in the last month,” Odom said. “It’s because of his leadership and the things he’s put in place for us to carry out and do.”
It’s becoming clear Pittman and Odom are forming a pretty tight bond. They even take daily walks together as a head coach with a lot of time spent on various coaching staffs listens to a guy who coached a few years in the SEC.
The initial observation from a distance (and that’s all we have to go on at this point) is Pittman understands he was given a pair of eyes plus two ears with just one mouth and acts in accordance with the proportion.
That’s what most successful leaders do.
“Coach Pittman has been unbelievable as a leader, providing us with the details on a day-to-day basis of what we want to get done and have a plan to go out and execute it,” offensive coordinator Kendal Briles said later in the teleconference.
At least it appears he has a plan that his staff understands. For about the last seven years everybody appeared to be making things up, almost on a weekly basis the last couple of seasons.
“We kind of had an anticipation that it may go to all students being away,” Pittman said on The Paul Finebaum Show on the SEC Network on Friday. “We did a lot of teach tapes and a lot of things of that nature, getting ready video-wise to be gone. It’s been fairly smooth, I think, over the last three weeks. We’ve got a lot completed and a lot done.”
Can you imagine how this shutdown would have affected the previous two staffs? Too much over the last seven seasons looked like it was being made up as they went along.
That’s how you end up with a 33-54 record over that time span and 4-20 the last two seasons.
Pittman at least has his coordinators talking about how has handled something nobody could predict. He may have had an idea some kind of disruption was coming.
“Really didn’t give him a handbook on how to handle this, but he has provided the structure, organization and the things that he’s put in place for us to be able to do,” Odom said Friday.
One of Pittman’s strengths is his one-on-one ability with players. We’ve heard that from a lot of people for several years.
“The biggest thing as a coach is you like to look people in the eye,” he told Finebaum. “We’ve tried to get as much interaction as we possibly can so we can find out if our kids are understanding what we’re trying to teach to them … and, for that matter, if our coaches are understanding the points I’m trying to get across.”
Apparently they get it. The respect for Pittman comes across as real.
“He’s got a staff that respects him,” Briles said.
We haven’t heard that a lot in awhile. It doesn’t automatically equate to wins, which is what everything ultimately is the final measuring stick.
But it does indicate the ship is pointed in the right direction.
Maybe more solidly than we’ve seen in awhile.
Experience, leadership, make Boyd leader of offense, not any QB
It sounded like Kendal Briles has a pretty good idea who will be the main leader of Arkansas’ offense when they finally get back to campus and it won’t be a quarterback.
That’s not a knock on any of them.
Rakeem Boyd has put himself in that position by coming back for his senior year, which is something you don’t see in this day and age of getting out of college as fast as possible.
“Probably only one of a handful of guys on the roster that have come back that have had a lot of production and a lot of success and he’s one of those guys,” Briles said Friday about Boyd. “Those guys can do two things. They can pull down your team or they can really uplift your team.”
Just so we’re clear, Boyd is one of the guys who is on the good side of that.
“Rakeem is one of those guys that has led by example on a daily basis by being on time for workouts and busting his butt at all the workouts,” Briles said of the off-season drills before the forced break due to the COVID19 virus.
He’s kept up in that pace in the virtual time the team is starting to have more and more of with the increase to eight hours a week starting next week.
Boyd has been “very engaged once we were able to get a little bit of football,” Briles said.
He’s been one of the bright spots the past two seasons. In 2018, when he was battling injuries most of the year, Boyd still had 734 yards rushing and another 165 in pass receptions.
Last season he broke out, though, carrying the ball 184 times for 1,133 yards and eight touchdowns while also catching 19 passes for 160 yards.
Briles has seen the film. Probably several times for quite awhile.
“I’ve known Rakeem for quite awhile,” Briles said. “I recruited Houston when I was at another institution. I recruited Rakeem from high school. A very talented back.”
Briles has the same goal every coach wants to have offensively, which is run the ball first. That takes a running back that can find holes because just about every offensive line creates them these days with the less physical style of blocking most of the time.
Boyd provides that.
“He’s a really powerful runner, but he’s got elusiveness as well,” Briles said. “He’s got good ball skills. He’s got the drive. He’s got the want-to. He’s a big kid, 205 pounds, broad shoulders. And he’s got long speed. He can run. I think he’s an all-around, every down back.”
Usually the quarterback is the leader of the offense. It goes with the position. Briles, though, is in a unique position of only being able to look at things on film and graduate transfer Feleipe Franks is the expected starter, but nobody knows at this point.
“We just want to see him throw a football,” Briles said Friday about Franks. “That’s the craziest thing, you know … I’ve been around him since January, and haven’t seen him throw a football because we haven’t had the opportunity to be able to do that.
“It’s kind of important to play that position. We’d like to be able to see that.”
And it’s not just Franks. He hasn’t seen any of them in what is becoming a crowded room.
“Those guys are all in the same boat,” Briles said.
Which has put Boyd into being the leader of the offense.
Yurachek named to state’s Economic Recovery Task Force by Hutchinson
If there was any doubt about just how big sports are in Arkansas, you might have noticed the appointment of Razorback athletics director Hunter Yurachek to the state’s Economic Recovery Task Force.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced the formation of the task force at a press conference Saturday regarding the current shutdown caused by the COVID19 pandemic.
The task force was created by an executive order from Hutchinson with representatives from various fields instrumental in the health of the Arkansas economy.
The task force is chaired by Steuart Walton and includes three Arkansas cabinet secretaries: Wes Ward (Agriculture), Mike Preston (Commerce) and Stacy Hurst (Parks, Heritage and Tourism).
Hutchinson said he anticipates the first meeting of the task force will be next week.
“It is an honor and privilege for me to serve our state and my fellow Arkansans as a part of the Arkansas Economic Recovery Task Force,” Yurachek said in a statement from the UA. “I sincerely appreciate Governor Hutchinson appointing me to be part of the team to help address the economic challenges our state faces as part of this global health emergency.
“Razorback Athletics has always played an important role in bringing our state together, especially in difficult times. When it is determined to be safe to resume Razorback events, we look forward to the opportunity to not only raise the spirits of Arkansans, but also play a substantial role in contributing to the revitalization of the Arkansas economy.”
An economic study commissioned in 2015, estimated that Razorback Athletics’ economic impact to the state is more than $160 million annually. That’s in addition to the revenue generated by athletics itself.
“We have 26 to 27 members (on the task force) that are designated in the Executive Order,” Hutchinson said. “They are primarily representing different fields of our economy. Whether it is agriculture, whether it is outdoor recreation or whether it is sports, and sports is a part of our economy.
“They will be represented in this task force, as well as the small businessperson, represented through the National Federation of Independent Business, having representative there, the retail associations will be on there, on and on down the list really every aspect of our economy.
“The expectation of this task force is that they will meet in their industry group and will look at their own guidelines within their industry to see how they can, consistent with the public health requirement, allow them to expand in their industry, to open up more and to put this economy in a higher gear. But to do it in a way that is consistent with public health requirements and that gives the public confidence.”
Information from Razorback Sports Communications is included in this story.
No press conferences, but Musselman somehow finding ways to hype Hogs
There are times you watch what Eric Musselman is doing and shake your head.
Nobody in Arkansas has seen what he’s doing. A lot of the SEC hasn’t really seen anything like it.
He knows how to market the Razorbacks, probably better than anybody that’s been around the program and he knows that’s how you get players in this technology-driven world.
Especially in the current health crisis where everything is shut down and communication is being done over computers and mobile devices these day.
Not able to have a press conference?
No problem for Musselman who recorded him talking with new signee Moses Moody … then putting the whole thing up on social media.
Brilliant move.
It helps that his wife, Danyelle has a little experience in front of a camera and house full of people familiar enough with the technical aspects to get it all done.
The result was as good as a press conference and explained the delay in his signing, which had a few fans squirming despite him saying he would sign soon.
“He and his family wanted to read the entire (National Letter of Intent),” Musselman explained early. “Then Moses asked us questions. I just want the fans to understand what a serious-minded young man we’re getting.
“He actually read the thing, wanted to do it alone, wanted to ask questions. That just shows the maturity.”
Moody was able to actually talk about that.
“That’s exactly what it is, a contract,” he said. “So I just wanted to read over the document and see what I was signing. It’s such a big step. I just wanted to be 100 percent sure about certain things. I had a couple of things I didn’t understand because it’s a lot of terminology.”
The delay didn’t bother Musselman, who was apparently in constant communication with Moody and his family.
“I was actually glad it took an extra two days because now you learned a lot more about the process,” Musselman said. “I know you’re going to read your scouting report like that, too.”
Musselman also included the fans, who were able to ask questions as Danyelle provided the moderator part of that.
This may have been done before, but I haven’t seen it or even heard about it.
When you step back and look at the big picture, though, it’s part of why Musselman is putting together a Top 10 class that’s getting the Hogs back into the national picture.
They were ranked in the Top 25 of one of those way-too-early things and even projected as a possible Sweet 16 team based on the strength of this recruiting class and going from one of the shortest teams in college basketball to having a few players that are tall.
Height is the one thing Musselman can’t develop.
But marketing and selling his program is as he showed again Friday night.
Moses Moody interview with Eric & Danyelle Musselman
ICYMI: Moses Moody talked with Eric & Danyelle Musselman on Friday night to discuss signing with Arkansas!
Neighbors adds All-Pac 12 guard as graduate transfer from Oregon State
With Alexis Tolefree running out of eligibility, Mike Neighbors needed some help immediately and may have added it with All-Pac 12 guard Destiny Slocum announcing she’s headed to Arkansas.
Slocum made the announcement via Twitter on Saturday:
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— Destiny Slocum (@DestinySlocum24) April 18, 2020
Slocum was the National Freshman of the Year in 2017 at Maryland. Following that season at Maryland she opted to transfer to Oregon State.
After sitting out the 2017-18 season, she has been a starter the past two years for the Beavers, averaging 15.4 points and 4.5 assists as a redshirt sophomore, and 14.9 points and 4.7 assists this season.
Tolefree averaged 16.3 points a game this past season as the Razorbacks had a 24-8 record but was denied a bid in the NCAA Tournament with the postseason cancelled due to the COVID19 pandemic
