HawgBeat - Arkansas basketball has delayed arrival to Battle 4 Atlantis
It was not an easy journey to the Bahamas for the Arkansas basketball team.
arkansas.rivals.com
It's safe to say that the past five days haven't been very easy for Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman.
The fifth-year coach had to watch his team take a 78-72 loss at home to UNC Greensboro on Friday and then he sat around for 6.5 hours with the rest of the staff and players trying to get to the Bahamas on Monday.
"Yeah, I think if we would’ve gotten here on time and played better in our last game...because historically, we’ve done a good job of getting out wherever we are," Musselman said Tuesday. "We were going to go swim with the pigs. That got cancelled when we lost the game. You throw in the 6.5-hour delay, it really screwed up our prep yesterday.
"If we would’ve known we were leaving at 4 o’clock, we could’ve had a really solid practice yesterday, but from 8 on, we thought we were leaving every 40 minutes. It is what it is. We’re here. We love being here. Awesome tournament. The field is so strong."
Musselman told reporters after Friday's loss to the Spartans that the Hogs would practice early Monday and it would be a "hard practice." To end up sitting around for 6.5 hours wondering when he's going to leave probably was not good on Musselman's stress level after a concerning loss.
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On top of the UNCG loss, the Razorbacks now have a tough tournament that features a guaranteed Wednesday matchup with Stanford and then a matchup with either Michigan or Memphis on Thursday. Friday's contest is to be determined based on Wednesday's and Thursday's results.
After the tough tournament field, the Hogs will return home for a highly-anticipated showdown with Duke on Wednesday, Nov. 29.
"I haven’t looked at everybody’s schedule, but I can pretty much guarantee that nobody has a more difficult four-game schedule that we’re staring at right now," Musselman said. "Our whole thing is, do we want to play well here, absolutely. Do we want to string together a winning streak, certainly we would like to.
"But I’m never going to lose the philosophy of every single day trying to figure out A: how to make just to put ourselves in a position to make an NCAA Tournament and then B: How are we the right mindset physically, mentally going into March. But, first, you have to get there and the only way to get into the tournament is to win games. So high priority to play well these three games because we do know that there is a national television audience that’s going to watch these games as well and evaluate teams’ performances."
After getting out his frustrations with the situation, the Head Hog did have plenty of good things to say about the event, which is being held at Paradise Island, Bahamas, in the Imperial Arena.
"For everybody to be in one hotel is really cool," Musselman said. "To be able to walk to practice and not have to drive or sit in traffic, it’s one of the premiere events in the country. We got in a little bit later than we would’ve liked because we were so excited to get here, but we’ve had a good day. Got to go have a good practice, have a nice event tonight and then get ready to play the game tomorrow."
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Arkansas and Stanford will tipoff at 6:30 p.m. CT and the game will be televised on ESPNU.
