Musselman returns to Indiana
5 p.m. Central today, Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Ind. (Big Ten Network)
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Today won’t be the first time University of Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman has been on the visiting bench for a basketball game in Indiana’s Assembly Hall. But it has been a while. Musselman, 55, was 10 years old the last time it happened. That was on Jan. 13, 1975, when Indiana beat Minnesota 79-59.
The late Bill Musselman — Eric’s father — was
in his fourth and final season coaching the Golden Gophers. Eric Musselman would travel with his father’s team throughout the Big Ten.
The 1974-75 Hoosiers — Coach Bobby Knight’s fourth season at Indiana — won their first 30 games before losing to Kentucky 92-90 in the NCAA Mideast Regional final with star player Scott May still slowed by an arm injury.
“Indiana had May, [Kent] Benson, [Quinn] Buckner, [Bobby] Wilkerson,” Musselman said. “It was probably the greatest team in the history of Indiana basketball. I mean, they were loaded.”
The next season those same players won the 1976 national championship and finished 32-0 — the last NCAA Division I team to go undefeated — but Knight has said the 1974-75 team was his best.
Eric Musselman also was on hand at Williams Arena in
Minneapolis on Jan. 8, 1972, when his father’s Minnesota team beat Knight’s Hoosiers 52-51 in the first Big Ten game for both coaches. Assembly Hall opened that same season, and Indiana beat Minnesota 61-42 at home for some payback.
Musselman said it was fun growing up at his father’s games, but he doesn’t expect those memories to come flooding back when he walks into Assembly Hall today.
The focus today at 5 p.m. is playing Indiana now, Musselman indicated, not 45 years ago.
“Indiana is so good at home,” he said of the Hoosiers’ 9-0 record in Assembly Hall. “I think you’ve just got to play possession by possession and see where it goes.”
Arkansas (10-1) and Indiana (11-1) have plenty of players who are familiar with each other.
Six Razorbacks — Isaiah Joe, Mason Jones, Desi Sills, Adrio Bailey, Jalen Harris and Reggie Chaney — played against Indiana twice last season. Ethan Henderson played against the Hoosiers once.
Four Hoosiers — including starting forward Justin Smith — played both games against the Razorbacks.
Jones hit a free throw with 2.6 seconds left to lift the Razorbacks to a 73-72 victory in Walton Arena in a regular-season game. He purposely missed the second free throw so the clock would run out before Indiana could get up a good shot.
Indiana guard Devonte Green — who missed the game at Arkansas because of a thigh injury — had 18 points and 11 rebounds when the Hoosiers beat the Razorbacks 63-60 at Assembly Hall in a second-round NIT game.
Green hit two free throws with 6.1 seconds left to give Indiana a 63-60 lead, then Harris missed a 38-foot shot at the buzzer.
“What I remember about the game is I was just going in there with a lot of confidence,” said Sills, who led the Razorbacks with 18 points at Indiana before fouling out with 4:25 left. “I was just letting the game come to me. I hope I do the same thing [today].”
Last season’s game at Indiana drew an announced crowd of 12,225. The Hoosiers have averaged 16,116 this season at home.
“I feel like we know what to expect,” Bailey said. “We’ve been in the Indiana environment, which is a great environment to play in if you love basketball. We’re not going to be rattled or anything.”
Musselman said previous experience playing at Indiana should help the Razorbacks.
“I think it doesn’t hurt that you’ve played in that building, for sure,” he said. “Having said that, they’re a way different team.”
The Hoosiers have two new starters in 6-9 freshman Trayce Jackson-Davis, who is averaging team-highs of 15.0 points and 8.9 rebounds, and 6-11 junior Joey Brunk, who played off the bench last season but didn’t play in either Arkansas game.
Indiana sophomore guard Rob Phinisee, who started last season, is now playing off the bench after missing much of preseason practice with an injury.
With Jackson-Davis and Brunk starting, the 6-7 Smith has moved to small forward from power forward.
“They’re bigger, they’re more athletic, stronger,” Musselman said of this season’s Hoosiers. “I think it looks like they understand their roles this year. I thought last year they were discombobulated at times, and I think this year they seem a lot more connected.”
While today will be Musselman’s first game in Assembly Hall in 45 years, he and his father were back with Knight in Bloomington in the fall of 1998 during an NBA lockout with the owners and players in a dispute over the collective bargaining agreement.
At the time, Bill Musselman was an assistant coach with the Portland Trail Blazers and Eric Musselman was an assistant with the Orlando Magic.
“With the lockout, you can’t deal with your own players, so we got sent out on college assignments to go scout,” Musselman said. “We spent a week with Coach Knight and watched their practice, sat in on all their film sessions.”
Among the former Indiana players Musselman has coached as pros are Calbert Cheaney — the consensus 1993 national college player of the year — and Keith Smart — who hit the game-winning shot when the Hoosiers beat Syracuse 74-72 in the 1987 NCAA championship game — as well as Alan Henderson, Jim Thomas, Brian Evans and Jay Edwards.
“I’ve coached a lot of Indiana guys,” said Musselman, a former head coach in the NBA, CBA and Developmental League. “It’s a basketball hotbed. The players out of that program are well coached and understand the fundamentals really well. It’s been that way for more than 40 years.”
Musselman can speak from personal experience when it comes to watching the Hoosiers that far back.