Hogs' Eric Musselman on Purdue Exhibition
Arkansas Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman's complete press conference Tuesday on why he schedules exhibitions against really good teams that are something that benefits both teams like the one Saturday against Purdue on Saturday in Bud Walton Arena.
Transcript
00:00 Hey, how's Trevin responded in practice after playing, you know, pretty significant
00:04 minutes the other night and what would be the plan for him against Purdue?
00:07 Yeah, so TB's done a great job. You know, I think his intensity and workload has increased,
00:17 you know, especially yesterday. So I don't think there'll be a heavy
00:26 minutes restriction on him at all, you know, to be honest with you. I mean, I think that,
00:30 you know, probably, you know, 15 to 25.
00:36 You know, we feel comfortable playing there. Did you say you kind of froze up there? You
00:46 say 15 to 25? It sounded like? Yeah, yep. Okay. And then it's funny, 610, but I guess he's giving
00:54 away like five or six inches to AD. What kind of what's the plan? So the guys are saying it's
01:01 got to be team defense, even if you're playing man to man, just kind of what's, how do you
01:06 prepare for a big guy like that? Well, I mean, that's one of the reasons that we are so excited
01:11 about playing Purdue is you're talking about, you know, maybe the, you know, the hardest
01:20 player in college basketball, the game plan against because of his size, because of his
01:25 skill level, and because of his teammates that play surrounding him, coach Painter's done a
01:32 great job of getting shooting to surround a player that's got great skill interior.
01:41 You know, so I would say that this prep to prepare for coach Painter team, they're tough,
01:49 they execute a lot of continuity, I would say that they're for sure way ahead of where we are
01:57 today. And, and they're probably way ahead of a lot of other programs.
02:04 And then you add in the fact that they played four games overseas, with a bunch of returners,
02:13 you know, this is a team that that's going to present a lot of a lot of, you know,
02:20 things that we need to try to cover between now and, and Saturday afternoon.
02:24 And how'd this game come about? Did you call Purdue? Did they call you? How'd this thing get
02:29 put together? Yeah, coach Todd Lee had been talking to the Purdue staff, and then coach
02:35 Painter and I have a relationship, you know, just through the Nike coaches, things that we've done
02:42 and, and, you know, from afar, I've always had great respect for, you know, for how hard his
02:49 teams play and how well coach they are and, and from an execution standpoint, and, you know,
02:57 certainly to get a chance to play somebody in an exhibition game to be able to play a team that has
03:04 a chance to win a national championship, certainly makes this game, you know, way more meaningful and
03:12 way more special than just a normal exhibition game. When you look at lessons that can be learned
03:19 once this game is over. I might have a couple more. I'll turn it back to Mike. Thanks. Jackson.
03:29 Hey, Eric, just curious, coming out of this game against UT Tyler, you mentioned kind of
03:34 wanting the team to be a little bit more physical and saying that you're going to work on that in
03:39 practice this week. How'd that go? How have they responded? And like, in what ways really are you
03:44 looking for some more physicality maybe against Purdue? Yeah, I think, you know, when we, you know,
03:50 it's yesterday was, you know, day, you know, day one of the, of the practice week. And, and I thought
03:56 it was really good practice, a very physical practice, you know, Purdue, obviously the
04:03 physicality with, with Edie inside the physicality of number four, Kaufman, Ren, those two guys are
04:12 physical. Number one first is really physical as well. Zero Gillis is another physical player.
04:20 And then their guards are just so scrappy. So we, you know, we've got to have physicality one
04:27 through five positionally as we prepare for, for Purdue. And then certainly, you know,
04:34 the physicality on the glass, cause they do a great job when the ball goes into number 15,
04:42 Edie, they, they do a great job of cutting with force to offensive rebound from their four spot.
04:49 So defensive blockouts become extremely important as well. But I thought yesterday we, you know,
04:56 we had a good, a good practice as far as preparation. But again, we understand internally
05:02 that Purdue is just based on their returners and roles and understanding expectations. They're
05:09 probably way ahead of, of, of where we are not only today, but where we will be, you know,
05:16 even two weeks from, from today, but it's a great game for us for sure.
05:20 And I think when we spoke with you in August, I think you mentioned just like lessons from the
05:27 Texas game last year helped you in the NCAA tournament way down the road. I'm just wondering,
05:33 like, are there any specific questions you might have, like at the top of your brain that you'd
05:37 like to kind of maybe learn about the team after the Purdue scrimmage?
05:41 Yeah, well, I think one, Jackson, you know, to be able to play a team that's got an interior force
05:47 like, you know, Edie and is a, you know, potential player of the year. So it's, it's twofold in the
05:54 preparation. Number one, we're playing against a center that might be unlike anybody that we play
06:00 all year. But we need to have, you know, some background, some body of work that we can refer
06:10 to later in the year. And then from a scheme standpoint, what Purdue's going to do, it's going
06:17 to, it's going to, we're going to be able to really dive into our preparation because they
06:22 have so many returners. And so we can build a scouting report off the fact that the coaches
06:30 returning, the players are returning, their star players returning, their star point guard,
06:36 number three, Smith is a returner coming off a fabulous freshman year. You know, so one,
06:44 we want to kind of like, where are we against a top three team in the country like this early
06:49 in the year? How do we stack up with a great rebounding team? How do we stack up with one of
06:56 the top three premier teams in the country? What a great opportunity for us to learn a lot about
07:08 ourselves, which I mean, when we walk out of Bud Walton on Saturday, you know, at about 530 or 6,
07:17 we're going to know a lot more areas that we've got to get better leading into our first game.
07:23 Curtis.
07:27 Hey, coach, I know it's a group effort to defend a guy like Eadie, but you know,
07:34 Makai kind of stands out as your biggest, most experienced body inside. I imagine he'll get a
07:38 healthy dose of that matchup. Just what do you make of this kind of challenge for him in the
07:43 preseason and maybe what growth have you seen from him from, you know, the UConn game to now?
07:49 Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, Kai went through a stretch this summer of being injured.
07:57 You know, he missed a good part of our offseason with a broken foot, but he did a great job
08:04 continuing to lift weights with our strength coach. You know, I think in this particular game,
08:14 you know, Chandler Lawson will get an opportunity to guard Eadie and obviously Kai will get an
08:21 opportunity to guard him. Jalen Graham, you know, if he's able to suit up would possibly get a
08:29 chance to, you know, to go in and guard him, maybe Bayfall. So there's a lot of different guys that
08:35 might get the opportunity, but certainly Kai and Chandler are the two players on our roster that
08:43 have the experience maybe of defending some of the more physicality guys that, you know, that we
08:51 could see. Because it's not just Eadie again, Kaufman Wren is really, really physical as well
08:57 inside and was their leading scorer in their four games overseas. So, and they'll play two
09:06 centers together. You know, there's a possibility that 15 Eadie will play alongside, you know,
09:14 Kaufman Wren. And then we have a decision whether we'll match up big to big or whether we'll go
09:19 with a big and a small and add perimeter shooting and dribble drive game against
09:25 maybe two big. So those are some of the things that we'll look to experiment with once we get
09:32 into that 40 minute experimental game. And you've touched on these guys a little bit,
09:38 but I wanted to ask you specifically about Braden Smith and Fletcher Lawyer, a couple guys who did
09:42 a lot for that team last year as true freshmen. They've got a year under their belt now. Just
09:46 what's your take on that backcourt? Yeah, both. I mean, it's as good a backcourt as you're going
09:51 to face. Both guys can make threes. Obviously Smith's got great defensive awareness and his
10:00 steal numbers show that. They're both really, really high, high basketball players. Obviously
10:07 Lawyer's father's a long time NBA coach and executive and, you know, Lawyer presents problems
10:15 because he understands passing angles from an offensive standpoint. He understands how to move
10:22 without the ball to get himself open. Just a really, really phenomenal backcourt. And then
10:28 number 55, Jones, the transfer from Southern Illinois. He's a guy that can take high volume
10:36 with threes, take high volume field goal attempts in his minutes. So those three guards in particular
10:44 can all present problems for you. Coach? Yeah, Coach, you mentioned Graham just the other day.
10:53 I know it's been a couple of days since the exhibition. Just how's he doing?
10:58 He tried yesterday. I don't know. He's okay. We'll see today. I mean, he's hopefully,
11:09 you know, I mean, he tried, but, you know, I mean, he was not going game speed or at the rate that,
11:17 you know, we're not going to play him if he's like he was yesterday. I can tell you that.
11:23 Gotcha. And I think I know the answer to this, but I mean, you played Texas last year,
11:26 you got Purdue this year. Is this something you'd like to do every year, play a high profile game
11:30 like this as an exhibition? Yeah, you know, I don't have the stuff in front of me at all, Hutch,
11:36 but I mean, you go all the way back to Nevada when we played Washington. You know, we scheduled
11:43 Washington because we felt like, you know, we were going to get a whole dose of 40 minutes a zone,
11:51 which is what we got. Our Nevada teams needed to improve against the zone. They had Theibel,
11:59 who's a heck of an NBA defender, at the top of their zone. So there was, I don't know how many
12:05 years ago, that was, we were one of the first teams that, you know, understood the rule of how
12:12 you could navigate and have a Division I team play you rather than a secret scrimmage, which
12:20 those are absolutely unequivocally meaningless. The ones that I've been a part of, actually a
12:27 waste of time. The ones that I've been a part of, I remember San Francisco beating us at Arizona
12:33 State by 49 points a day after Halloween, you know, meant nothing at all to our team or anything.
12:44 So we like the dress rehearsals, I think, too, because of the fact that, you know, changing
12:52 rosters, I think that, you know, it's important. I think this game's really good for Coach Painter
12:58 and Purdue because we're going to have a great crowd. They're going to draw crowds wherever
13:06 Purdue goes. They're going to be sold out probably every game that they go on the road
13:11 because they're ranked so high and because of the returning group that he has and because
13:17 they have a National Player of the Year candidate that just doesn't come into opposing buildings
13:23 often. So I think this game is going to be great for them, too, to play an exhibition game
13:30 in front of a crowd that, I mean, right now I think we're at 14,000 seats that are sold.
13:38 That's not counting the 3,000 seats that will be held for the student body.
13:43 You know, so that's going to be really, really good for their team, too, to play in front of
13:51 a good crowd as well. And you mentioned the dress rehearsal aspect of it. Does that apply to, like,
13:56 you know, the scouting reports? I mean, we know all about your extensive scouting reports and
14:00 you've got new players. Does this kind of help them with that, you know, in an exhibition game?
14:05 I mean, I think so. I mean, you know, we certainly don't want to go into our first game and
14:10 all of a sudden it's, you know, culture shock on the preparation and what the expectations are
14:16 of understanding and opposing teams, second and third option in trying to take away something.
14:24 So, yeah, this is going to be trial by error for a lot of our, you know, new guys because this is,
14:30 you know, this is the first time that we're going to really dive into what we're trying to get
14:36 accomplished, both offensively and defensively, based on what the film shows us. The Division
14:42 Two game the other night against Tyler, we basically only looked at their personnel. I
14:48 thought we took a huge leap in understanding player personnel and I thought we did a great
14:54 job taking away, you know, the individual skill that the Tyler group had, other than the fact that
15:02 we left their left hander, you know, get middle on the side of the block that we were supposed to
15:11 take away. But that was a good learning experience for Bay Fall to understand that if we say a guy
15:17 goes over his right shoulder and his left hand and wants to shoot a jump hook on the right block,
15:21 you better take that away. And so that's, you know, it's good for a guy to experience that
15:27 and maybe get taken out of a game when, you know, when the scouting report's not followed as it's
15:33 supposed to be. Scottie? Eric, I'm curious, what have your impressions been of El to this point
15:42 in the preseason and is he doing, I guess, the kinds of things that you'd hoped for when you got
15:47 him? Yeah, I mean, El and I had a lot of talks leading up to this on, you know, look, he's put
15:53 points on the board at the Division One level. He's put points on the board at Junior College.
15:58 He's put points on the board against Power Five, teams on the road. You look at what he did in
16:04 his conference last year against great competition. You know, now how do you become a more
16:10 well-rounded player? I think El's excited to play around pieces that he feels like he can deliver
16:17 the basketball to and guys can either catch and shoot or make plays. And so, you know, his growth
16:26 of growing into more of a true point guard, I think, is something that he wanted and something
16:34 that, you know, that we want. And look, his Louisville experience was great for him as well
16:39 because, I mean, he played a lot of minutes. So when a player gets to experience all those minutes
16:46 and you do some things that are really great and you do some things that you want to work on and
16:51 you do some things that maybe help your team and then some other things that maybe, you know,
16:56 you got to get better at to help your team. I think that that Louisville experience of getting
17:02 all those minutes in such a great league for him is really, really beneficial.
17:09 - We saw a little bit earlier, Tremont got put on the Jerry West Award watch list. I don't feel like
17:15 we've talked about him much this preseason, but what have your thoughts been on him and just how
17:20 important will his play, I guess, defensively be against Purdue's backcourt?
17:23 - Yeah, I mean, T-Mark's aggressive, physical, confident, played for a great coach in Calvin
17:30 Sampson, probably, you know, as good a defensive program in the country. Their defensive schemes
17:38 are a little bit different than ours. So I think that he's still in a growing, learning, development
17:47 stage of how we want to play team defense. But I think as an individual defender, you know, he's
17:54 as good as anybody in the country. You know, we feel like he can rebound a little bit more than
18:00 he has in the small sample size that we have so far, but really, really excited about the offensive
18:08 growth that we've seen throughout the course of the summer as well. I mean, I think he's
18:13 a much improved shooter based on his individual player development stuff that he's done on his own
18:22 since the time he got on campus.
18:23 - Bob, final questions while we get coach down to practice?
18:29 - Eric, in your college experience, do you face the guy like E.D., or do you have to go back to
18:34 your NBA days, or is there somebody you can compare him to you faced in the past?
18:39 - Well, I mean, we've gone back to some of the notes that we used when
18:43 we played against Shaquille O'Neal. To be honest, I mean, I did pull out
18:49 some of the old scouting reports just because of, you know, the crowd that you want E.D. to play in,
18:55 meaning, you know, the five guys on the floor, how are you going to make him feel? A little bit
19:02 of pressure. You've got to obviously have more than just a plan A to defend his post-up game,
19:09 to defend his high-low game. You know, he does a great job of, like, faking like he's going to go
19:18 set a screen or receive a screen and then get a lob pass. And actually, one of our players sent
19:25 clips of that, which really was a huge positive to have one of our returners pull some clips and
19:31 send it to our coaching staff. That means that they're studying on their own. You know, are we
19:39 going to trap him? Are we going to dig off of him? Are we going to, it's hard to front E.D. because
19:46 he'll post up right in the middle of the floor instead of the right block or the left block.
19:50 And when a player posts up right in the middle of the floor, causes a little bit more problem,
19:56 you know, than just a guy on one side of the floor. So how are you going to do that? And the
20:04 three players that are not guarding the passer and not guarding the post player, how are those
20:10 three players, where are they going to be positioned on the floor to either A, help on
20:16 E.D.'s catch or B, stay attached to some great shooters, you know, who have proven they got great,
20:24 great range from three-point land. And we haven't even talked about a guy like 25 Morton and the way
20:31 that he's improved as a player for Purdue. Anything you want to say about, I know it's
20:36 next year, but they announced the San Diego tournament. Very, very, very excited about that
20:45 opportunity to play in San Diego. When you think about the teams that are going to be there,
20:54 great field, super, super excited. I'll be able to see my mom, that my mom will be able to
21:05 have the team over to her house for a good meal. And I'm kind of excited to show the guys like,
21:13 hey, this is where I grew up. This is the outdoor court that I played on.
21:17 You know, here's the beach that we used to go surf on. So I'm completely excited about going
21:24 to San Diego. We've had some good, some good weather MTAs when you look at,
21:31 you know, Maui and Nassau Bahamas and San Diego. That's, I'd say three for three-wise for our fans
21:40 that travel with us and stuff on, on these things. Cause we have a lot of people going to the Bahamas
21:45 that went to Hawaii and hopefully we'll have a good group in San Diego. That's three pretty good
21:50 destination spots to go watch some basketball. Now we got to get the media members to come to
21:56 these spots. I'm just saying.