Win leaves Hogs in jolly mood
FAYETTEVILLE — Eric Musselman said his Christmas plans include staying home and watching a lot of films.
Musselman wasn’t talking about “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Miracle on 34th Street” or other Christmas movie classics.
The University of Arkansas basketball coach was referring to studying game films of the Razorbacks’ next opponent.
“I hope Mariah and Danyelle like to watch Mississippi State film,” Musselman said of his daughter and wife.
Arkansas (10-2) opens SEC play at Mississippi State (9-3) at 8 p.m. CST on Wednesday. The game will be televised by the SEC Network (Resort Channel 79).
It will be the Razorbacks’ first official road game of the season.
Arkansas has played four games away from Bud Walton Arena with mixed results, beating Kansas State 72-64 and Cincinnati 73-67 at the Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City, Mo., and losing to Oklahoma 88-66 in Tulsa and to Hofstra 89-81 in North Little Rock.
The Razorbacks bounced back from their two losses by beating Elon 81-55 on Tuesday night in Walton Arena in what Musselman called their best performance of the season.
Having a convincing victory meant the players could enjoy a three-day Christmas break that began after the Elon game. They’ll be off until returning to campus for a Saturday night practice.
“Everybody’s ready to get back home, see family for a little minute,” Arkansas junior forward Kamani Johnson said. “Glad that we ended (the pre-Christmas schedule) like this, and we’re going to roll it over to SEC play.”
Johnson got his first significant playing time of the season against Elon and had 15 points, seven rebounds and three blocked shots off the bench.
“It’s three days off, but in the locker room, nobody’s satisfied,” Johnson said. “We’re getting prepared for Mississippi State. So we’re focused on that.”
Senior forward Trey Wade, a transfer from Wichita State, made his first start as a Razorback against Elon and had seven points, five rebounds and three blocked shots.
“I think we took a step forward,” Wade said. “Just playing together, playing a little harder, and we’re trying to find our identity on offense.
“That’s the biggest thing, so I think we took a little step forward as far as coming together a little bit more.”
Johnson said the Razorbacks are a more unified team than the one which lost to Oklahoma and Hofstra and fell out of The Associated Press poll after being ranked as high as No. 10.
“I think we’re just more together right now,” he said. “We put our foot down. We hear the noise (from fans) and all that stuff.
“So this win was really good for us.”
Musselman used 11 players against Elon, all of whom got into the game in the first half.
Against Hofstra and Elon, 10 Razorbacks got a start with a different lineup opening each game.
“The last couple games the goal has been to try to give different guys starts so that we have a body of work,” Musselman said. “A body of film work over this break to decide exactly what we want to try to do heading into conference play.”
Musselman said the Razorbacks have learned some things about themselves going back to the Oklahoma loss.
“In our two losses, we got down, which we did last year a lot,” Musselman said. “We fought back, which we did last year a lot.
“And then both Hofstra and Oklahoma had another push in them. Last year, we slugged right back. For the most part, it was if we got behind we fought and clawed back.
“A team would make a mini run and then we would come back with another one.
“Those two losses, we did not counterpunch. We’re searching for that group that’ll fight, scrap and counterpunch. Hopefully, (the Elon game) gives us some more information to try to do that.”
While the Razorbacks were beating Elon, No. 10 Alabama lost to Davidson 79-78 in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday night and Ole Miss lost to Samford 75-73 at home.