FAYETTEVILLE -- New Arkansas women's basketball coach Kelci Musick was introduced to the media on Monday.
Musick comes to Arkansas from Oral Roberts where she has coached the past three years. Musick replaces Mike Neighbors as head coach of the Razorbacks. At ORU, Musick had a record of 57-39. The past two seasons Musick was 21-11 in 2023-24 and then 24-9 in 2024-25. Among the wins this season was a 94-73 win over Arkansas in Bud Walton Arena on Thursday, Nov. 21. It was that win that helped put Musick on the radar of Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek.
"She first came on my radar screen back in November of this season when she brought her Oral Roberts team here to Bud Walton Arena and I watched how she coached with incredible energy and incredible passion, and her student-athletes played the same way," Yurachek said. "And they walked out of here, I think they won by 18-20 points and the game was really never close after the first quarter. Then she went on to Missouri back in December and beat a Missouri team at Missouri. In fact, I believe her two SEC wins would have put her at 14th or 15th place in the SEC this year with those two wins."
Prior to ORU, she spent 13 seasons as the head coach at NCAA Division II Southwestern Oklahoma State. Musick amassed a 259-125 (.674) record at SWOSU earning Great American Conference Coach of the Year honors five times while leading the Lady Bulldogs to the national championship game in 2019 as part of seven NCAA Tournament appearances.
"In my 15 years being an athletic director at three different institutions, I’ve gone through 12 or so head coaching searches and they all take on a life of their own and that life is further accented now at the advent of social media and how much social media has become involved in these coaching searches," Yurachek said. "I spoke to multiple coaches, multiple informally and a few formally. What I can tell you is that some wanted to be an Arkansas Razorback, some did not. Some embraced the challenge of building a nationally competitive program in the SEC and some did not. Some were using this as an opportunity to leverage their current institutions and some had a genuine interest in this job. What I was looking for, I was looking for a coach who indeed wanted to be an Arkansas Razorback and understood what the challenge was to build a nationally competitive program in the Southeastern Conference. And I wanted a coach that embraced competing against the coaches in this conference because the best coaches are in the Southeastern Conference and they didn’t need to shy away from that.
"I wanted a proven winner. I wanted a program-builder and I wanted a good person who was a great fit for our department and a great fit in our head coaches room. And I wanted a coach who still valued the student-athlete and the student-athlete experience in this ever-changing environment in college athletics. I truly believe Kelsi checked all of those boxes and many more."
Musick shared her vision for the Arkansas program.
"Obviously to rebuild it," Musick said. "We want a strong foundation. Our players have to understand they are playing in the best conference in America and they have to perform at the highest level. Player development is extremely important. Have a standard of excellence. We have to lay the foundation and it starts now."
Musick's teams are known for playing at a fast pace and she doesn't plan to change that at Arkansas.
"We want to put points on the scoreboard," Musick said. "We're not going to play slow. We're going to play fast. It takes energy, level of passion and effort to perform at the highest level. That's definitely important."
Due to Arkansas on spring break, Musick hasn't met with the players which is something she plans to do when they return to campus. Arkansas was 10-22 and 3-14 in Neighbor's final season. Musick did talk about her thoughts about Arkansas on the night she coached against them in November.
"It's a quality program," Musick said. "Arkansas Razorbacks basketball is really important. Everyone here is really passionate about the women's basketball program and I think the fans are."
