FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas is coming off its first win the SEC and faces a talented South Carolina team that's playing good basketball.
The Razorbacks will host the Gamecocks on Saturday with the tip set for noon. Arkansas (10-7, 1-3) defeated Texas A&M 78-77 Tuesday night in Bud Walton Arena. South Carolina (14-3, 2-2) enters the same arena and hopes to hand the Hogs another loss. Eric Musselman is impressed with South Carolina and wants his team to build some momentum.
"Yeah, I think for us it’s about preparation, understanding South Carolina’s record," Musselman said. "Last game was good but whether anything carries over or not, we’ll find out at game time. But certainly a step in the right direction on many fronts. We’ve got to get ready for South Carolina. They have a really good backcourt. Meechie Johnson’s playing as good as anybody, and obviously [Ta’Lon] Cooper, a transfer from Minnesota, and Myles Stute at the 3 spot, B.J. Mack. So there’s a lot of things we’ve got to get ready for between now and Saturday."
Johnson is averaging 17.2 points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.0 steal each game. Mack is scoring at a 13.6 points per game clip. He has also added 5.1 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 0.8 block each time out. Stute is averaging 9.9 points and Cooper 9.2 and a team-leading 4.2 assists to go with 4.5 rebounds. The Gamecocks finished 11-21 last season so they have already won more games.
"They’re connected," Musselman said. "You watch them play and they’re connected. They play more together. It looks like there’s an agenda with them this year and that agenda is to win. I’m not so sure you felt that way last [year], you know what I mean? It just kinda happens. I think their coaching staff has done not a good job but a phenomenal job. The culture looks very, very strong this year.
"I’m super impressed with maybe what might not be what some national people think are big transfer additions have been phenomenal for them. 55 Cooper, I mean he can make 3s, he’s got good size and he never turns the ball over. B.J. Mack can pick and pop and he rebounds the ball. Myles Stute is known as a shooter and he’s making shots. So super impressed with their guys. And then Meechie Johnson is a returning player who quite frankly is playing as well as any guard in our league. I thought going into the year he wasn’t talked enough about. Well, everybody’s talking about him now. He’s being extremely productive on the floor, not in preseason … whatever. He’s producing."
Tramon Mark had 35 points, five rebounds and three blocks against Texas A&M. Musselman talked about what the Houston transfer does well in addition to obviously scoring.
"Well for sure especially when a guy has the ball in their hands, the teammates need to feel like there are contributions going on in other areas," Musselman said. "I think we saw that with Mason Jones with all the steals that Mason would create defensively. JD Notae was a great on-ball defender.
"We’ve challenged T-Mark, because he should be blocking more shots with his length. With his anticipation. He’s a guy that’s going to block shots on the ball, which is what he did a couple times with Taylor. We moved him over from the small forward spot to guard Taylor, and I thought he had a great effect on the game from a defensive standpoint. We post our defensive rebounds per minute every pre-practice. He probably knows he’s got to rebound the ball better for us to have effectiveness, and certainly he’s done that of late at a much higher clip than he did at the beginning of the year."
Texas A&M's Wade Taylor IV scored 41 points against Arkansas on Tuesday night. Musselman doesn't want to see Johnson have a similar game.
"Well, Taylor had an incredible game, he made some incredible shots," Musselman said. "But that was a lot of field goals attempted as well. We did not double him, in the past we’ve doubled star players when they come across half court to get the ball out of their hands. We did not do that the other night. We felt that Taylor and (Tyrece) Radford were equally important. You know, whether it was a little bit of our scheme or just an individual night for those two guys, you look at the stats and you would say you probably did as good a job as you could against Radford. I don’t know if he’s ever had a game statistically like that.
"You look at the number of points and the big baskets that Taylor hit, those were phenomenal numbers and phenomenal big-time shot making and Meechie Johnson is a guy that has deep range, can really dribble drive the ball. He scores it at all three levels, they’ll run pick n rolls with him. So our job will be to try and figure out what were best suited to — and we haven’t hit the practice floor since our last game. We start here in 22 minutes and 34 seconds where we’ll get back on the practice floor. That’s when really our game prep will begin, once we get down there and watch game film as a team. I’ll lay out our plan A, plan B and plan C and I’ll get feedback from these guys just like I always do. Whether it’s individual conversations, individual text messages or team conversations after we watch individual clips of their top eight guys and then once we defend their plays."
Saturday's game will tip at noon and televised on the SEC Network.