More voices

Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman, speaking on Jim Rome’s radio show Friday, said the Razorbacks have become more talkative at the NCAA Tournament.

There was a “different vibe” with the team, Musselman said, when the Razorbacks were watching film Wednesday in preparation to play Illinois.

“We had a film session and nobody said a word,” Musselman told Rome. “About five or six minutes in, I stopped it and said, ‘Hey, you guys are going to start talking. You guys are going to start communicating with one another.

“‘You’re going to talk about assignments, you’re going to talk about defensive coverages. You are going to be interactive with each other and with us.’

“And all of a sudden the vibe in the meeting room changed where there was a lot of communication. We then saw that carry over into our huddle [against Illinois on Thursday].

“We’ve had a lot of huddles this year where late game, there really was only one voice, and that was the coaching voice.

“[Thursday] we had a lot of players’ voices. We had a lot of guys get out of their comfort zone verbally. I thought that really, really helped us down the stretch.”

Musselman said he wants the players to be vocal and bring energy in the team huddles.

“The worst thing in the world in my opinion is to have just one voice,” Musselman said. “Now, if we have to diagram a lastsecond play, certainly you want to have command of the huddle.

“The way to do that is to look each guy individually in the eye, diagram where he’s going, say that player’s name, and you will get buyin on that.

“But I think when there’s five, six, eight minutes left in the basketball game, and a team’s making a run against you, you’ve got to have internal player leadership.”