By Otis Kirk

FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas coach Eric Musselman has a good mixture of returning players and new ones which includes transfers as well as a pair of freshmen.

Having such players as Davonte "Devo" Davis, Trevon Brazile, Joseph Pinion, Jalen Graham and Makhi Mitchell has helped during the summer workouts according to Musselman.

"I think every year’s different," Musselman said. "It’s really helped to have the returners back, meaning Devo and Jalen Graham and Cade (Arbogast) and Lawson (Blake) and Joseph, it’s helped. We have a little bit more returners than we’ve had. Then obviously with the experience that we have with guys like El Ellis, (Jereemiah) Davenport… Brazile’s helped a lot on the side. He still hasn’t jumped in with us full-go. But having returners along with veterans who have played a lot of college basketball games, T-Mark comes from a great program at Houston. 

"So you get a guy like T-Mark, who’s played for such a great coach in Kelvin Sampson, he understands how to work hard, he understands expectations. It’s different with experience. You can do things a little bit differently and then we have more returners than we did in the past, as well. So we’ve been able to accelerate some of our schemes. But there’s no comparison ever of teams other than the fact that what can this group execute and then move on to the next step or maybe a different phase. We’ve got in a lot more right now than we have in the past four years and I think it’s a combination of a whole bunch of things."

T-Mark is Tramon Mark who is a 6-foot-6 junior from the University of Houston. Musselman likes how coaching this team has gone for him and the assistants.

"When I come home at night, I tell Danielle all the time there’s not as much coaching frustration," Musselman said. "In reality, we’ve had one bad practice the whole summer and then we’ve had a couple that we’d like the energy a little bit better, but I would say for the most part… And again, we’re doing execution, we’re doing teaching, we’re doing 5-on-0 skeleton, dry-run type stuff. In no way, shape or form have we even come close to a rotation. Roles are being formulated in the coaching staff and probably in the players’ minds. 

"I’m sure that the players are forming opinions of teammates and forming maybe who they trust or formulating who could be a go-to guy, and I use that term very loosely, like who could be, because that’s all going to evolve and develop. Whoever we are in November, we hope that — just like in the past — we’re much different come March. That could be rotation player wise, it could be set plays… We still have a lot to try to figure out, but it’s been a really good summer as far as working. Our mile times (were) much improved off the last four years. And then it’s a similar approach and adding type stuff that we had with our last year at Nevada, I would say."

Musselman was asked if anything has jumped out at him about this group as a whole?

"Really coachable group," Musselman said. "I’ll give you an example. El Ellis was really quiet, was doing what he should do as an individual. I don’t know if I’ve seen a player change so quickly in his leadership, his verbal command of the floor. Been really cool to see in a very short period of time. And then other guys. Like Jalen Graham’s practice habits are dramatically different than last year. Dramatically. He’s done an incredible job of understanding expectations and then following through on his part. So there’s been some evolving even this summer, but that’s been one thing that’s really been cool to see, is Graham’s evolution and how El has really picked up what our expectations are and how we try to conduct practice and how talking and verbalization is really important on the court for us."

Musselman has two freshmen on the team this year. Both were five-star recruits. They are guard Layden Blocker and forward Baye Fall. 

"Yup, great question," Musselman said. "Baye got here a little bit later than some of the other guys. He’s a very, very hard worker. Spends a lot of time on his own. Surprisingly can make 3s at a much higher clip. Gotta continue to work on hands — catching the ball in traffic is an area that we want to continue to work with him on. Because he’s a freshman, he’s going to be playing a little bit of catch-up on understanding as we add stuff. Again, he came late, so I think anybody that isn’t here when some of the foundation stuff has been put in, you’re playing catch up, and certainly he falls into that. 

"Layden has a really mature approach to how he conducts. I don't know if I've ever been around a player his age who comes in pre-practice and goes to the weight room and starts stretching and getting himself mentally ready to practice. So, he's mature beyond what his age is, and he's a good leader on the floor. He's got point guard characteristics for sure."

The Razorbacks are coming off a 22-14 season that saw them get to the Sweet 16.

Photos Courtesy of Craven Whitlow CW3 Action Sports