HawgBeat - Musselman grades out team performance against Old Dominion
Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman graded out team performances in certain areas of the win over Old Dominion.
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The Monarchs out-rebounded the Razorbacks 39-35 and shot 45.8% from three. It’s the first time this season Arkansas has allowed an opponent to shoot above 40% from the three-point line, as Alcorn State was just 3-of-9 and Gardner-Webb was under 30% from three. Old Dominion also added a whopping 21 fastbreak points.
Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman wasn’t overly pleased with the performance, going as far as handing out grades for specific areas in his press conference.
“There’s some real positives, believe it or not,” Musselman said after the game. “Defending without fouling is something we really worked on. We got the towels out. They had to hold the towels above their head [in practices] to stop touching people.
“The fouling was really good. How many foul shots did they take? Five (4 of 5). So defending without fouling, A-plus. Taking care of the basketball, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a team only have four turnovers against a high-steal team. Against a team that plays four guards at a time and has great quickness. So taking care of ball, A-plus.
“Defensive rebounding, Double-F. Transition defense, Triple-F. Guarding the three, there’s no guard it was so bad. So some good, and some very poor.”
By our count, that's two A-plus', one Double-F, one Triple-F and one area that was so bad in Musselman's eyes it couldn't be graded. The tough perimeter defense set Arkansas back to No. 16 nationally on KenPom and the Hogs' 3-point percentage defense (35.7%) ranks 247th in the country.
It was also the first time in the young season Arkansas had been out-rebounded, despite an impressive performance from forward Makhi Mitchell, which included a 15-point, 10-rebound double-double.
Arkansas led for 35:30 of the game and its minimum win probability was 95.8%, yet it felt like Old Dominion was in the game for the entire time. Arkansas had its worst defensive efficiency rating of the season (109.9), but their turnover percentage of 5.7% on offense was easily the lowest this year.
Grading the team wasn't enough for Musselman, though, as he returned later in the press conference to areas the team needed to work on.
"Rebounding and physicality and guarding the ball," Musselman said. "That's a lot. Rebounding, physicality and our perimeter players being able to guard their guy. That's a lot of stuff to be concerned with."
Old Dominion grabbed 12 offensive rebounds as a team and their offensive rebound percentage of 30.8% was the best of any Razorback opponent this year.
Following the game, Old Dominion is the highest-ranked opponent on KenPom of the three Arkansas has faced so far this season. The Monarchs rank 168th, just one spot ahead of Gardner-Webb.
In a night where another ranked team lost to an unranked opponent, with Penn defeating No. 21 Villanova, the win is the most important stat of the night. Nonetheless, Musselman knows exactly what he wants to work on in the immediate future.
Arkansas will face off next against UNC-Greensboro on Friday at 7:00 p.m. CT at Bud Walton Arena before traveling to the Bahamas next week to participate in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
