Everything Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman said after losing at home to shorthanded UK

The other side of Kentucky’s rousing regular-season finale win at Arkansas on Saturday afternoon is a Razorbacks team that will enter postseason play having lost three straight games.

Head coach Eric Musselman’s team will enter the SEC Tournament following consecutive defeats to Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky, with the most recent defeat to the Wildcats being the most alarming of the bunch.

Arkansas went a woeful 2-for-20 on layups in Saturday’s nine-point home loss to a UK team without star freshman guard Cason Wallace, and with no true point guard on its roster for the game.

The Razorbacks had a player ejected during the game, and were never within two possessions of the Wildcats for the final 6:07 of the contest.

Afterward, Musselman met with the media to discuss what went wrong for Arkansas, what impressed him about Kentucky and the overall outlook of his team ahead of next week’s SEC Tournament.

Question about poor free-throw shooting and layups.

I think that our philosophy is, especially with this roster, has been to try to draw free-throws attempted and try to score points in the paint. Obviously tonight, 2-for-20 around the rim, you’re not going to win a lot of games.

I can’t remember a game where I’ve had a team have only six turnovers and not win the game. Certainly the free throws have been a huge concern in tight games, in big games. We’ll continue to try to work on it in pressure situations. But that’s been a big concern, for sure.

Question about the ejection of Arkansas guard Davonte Davis.

I’m not going to talk at all about the referees because that’s not what we do. That part of the question I’ll leave alone. Certainly Devo is a guy from a leadership standpoint, from being a veteran, we’re a better team when he’s with us and not in the locker room. We certainly missed him. He’s been a defensive stopper for us all season long.

That’s the single best performance that I’ve seen a player have against one of the teams we’ve coached, outside of the NBA, in Reeves’ performance tonight. He was phenomenal. He was 11-of-11 from the foul line, 12-of-17 from the field, 2-for-4, 37 points, just one turnover. I thought he was fantastic. I thought Toppin was really good. He hit two threes, one of them with one second on the clock that we didn’t contest and jump.

Those two guys in particular played really well. I thought Tshiebwe was really good, especially in the first half.

Question about the high-scoring performance of Kentucky’s Antonio Reeves.

Nothing surprised us. We knew when Wallace wasn’t going to play that he was going to be the guy. I thought they did a really good job of setting screens for him. Their dribble hand-off game really bothered us in the first half.

They were physical setting the screens, much like Tennessee was. The DHO (dribble-handoff) hurt us. I thought he came off with great speed off the dribble hand-offs.

Question about how Arkansas limited Oscar Tshiebwe in the second half.

We tried to be a little more physical, obviously we got into some foul trouble in the first half with him. He still played a good game. You look at his numbers, 12 and 13 is still a really good game and four offensive rebounds.

He’s a great rebounder and he plays really hard. I thought he really impacted the game, like I said, in the first half.

Question about Arkansas losing three consecutive games to end the regular season.

It’s up to our team to try to continue to get better. It’s up to our team to play as hard as you possibly can play. It’s up to our team to share the ball. We did share the ball tonight. Uncharacteristic defense of late. We haven’t played very good basketball the last three games. We’ve got to get better.

We did a great job in our non-conference play. We’re still a team that if we play better basketball, which I think we can, but we have to start doing it. I thought we played well at Alabama. Did not think we played well at Tennessee and did not think we played well again tonight. We’ve got to improve, for sure.

Question about Arkansas’ low turnover numbers.

I think that when you gain something in one area, you might lose it in another. We played a little bit smaller at times, I think that helps you take care of the basketball. Right now physical teams are bothering us. Physicality at the rim is bothering us.

Question about the turnaround from winning by double-digits at Kentucky to losing to Kentucky at home when UK doesn’t have Cason Wallace.

I’ve said every game takes on its own personality, but we’re not playing good basketball the last two basketball games. You look at our record over the last seven games or whatever.

We need to play better basketball for sure.

Question about how Arkansas is dealing with physical opponents.

I think, number one, Tennessee is as physical as you’re going to play against. Today, we have not shot that poorly around the rim. We didn’t shoot great around the rim against Tennessee, which is to be expected because they’re long and physical.

I thought that Kentucky, and Kentucky’s played really good basketball other than the tight loss to Vandy. They’ve got a lot of veterans. Maybe experience is bothering us a little bit, as well.

Question about whether or not Arkansas is good enough to be an NCAA Tournament team.

I think every team should go into the SEC Tournament fighting for their season, because it is a second season. The regular season is now over. I thought we did an incredible job when you think about our won-loss record, and you think about the metrics, and you think about the non-conference, and you think about the success of the teams we beat in non-conference play.

Yes, we feel confident that, yes, we are an NCAA Tournament team. We feel like through the regular season of basketball, we’ve proven we’re an NCAA Tournament team.

Question about why it was such a struggle to score against Kentucky on the interior.

I can’t answer that. Again, they’ve got good length, but we didn’t finish around the rim. And we didn’t make foul shots like we need to to beat a team like Kentucky. I thought they played pretty desperate coming off a loss.

There was a lid on the rim, and that’s what happened.

Question about Nick Smith Jr.’s performance (led Arkansas with 25 points) and attitude of maybe getting back in the gym Saturday night.

I hope that all of our guys want to get back in the gym at some point on their own between now and our next game to work on free throws and to work on shooting as a whole.

I thought Nick played really well: 25 points on 23 shots. But I think the biggest thing is just collectively, how do we have on-court chemistry where we’re clicking and we’re playing good on both sides of the basketball and we’re getting loose balls.

I can’t remember a team that we’ve had that did not get to loose balls in that first half. At one point there were 10 and there were eight that they beat us to, which that takes physicality to run through the ball on loose balls. So there’s a lot of areas that don’t show up on the stat sheet that we’ve got to continue to get better at.

Question about how impressed he was by Kentucky without Cason Wallace.

We’re certainly not going to feel sorry for anyone that’s had any injuries. I can tell you that flat out.

What happened tonight is Reeves stepped into the point guard position and he had 37 points. Both those other guys play, combined they can’t do what Reeves did. He played as good as any player that I’ve seen since I’ve been coaching here at Arkansas. I can’t remember anyone in the Mountain West that did that to one of our teams with that percentage.

So he played phenomenal and those other two guys did not play. They put the ball in his hands and he made great decisions, missed five shots. He scored 37 points on 17 shots. The productivity for Reeves was, how many guys score 37 points on 17 shots? It doesn’t happen.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-242-5257

Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription