Razorbacks Have to Clear Vandy Hurdle or Musselman Start Recruiting

To have any shot at postseason, Hogs now have to win five games and first one not best

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — For whatever reason, Vanderbilt has been a thorn in the side of Arkansas the last few years. After three straight years losing to the Commodores, either Jerry Stackhouse has the key or the Razorbacks might tend to overlook them. The fans do.

While looking past anyone is okay for the fans, players and coaches should know better. In the SEC anybody can get you if you don't really take it seriously. The Hogs may not have taken things that seriously, but we'll never know it because coach Eric Musselman won't admit it. He can't do that for this game.

"They are a team that competes," Musselman said after a loss at Alabama on Saturday. "They’re well-coached. They understand their roles. They have three stars. We have to do a much better job on their center than we did last game. We’ve got to do a much better job on their two guards, Manjon and T Lawrence, and then you’ve got to take away the three with the other guys. That would be some of the game plan stuff we’ve got to do and we’ve got to play much better than we did last game against Vanderbilt.

In that game just two weeks ago, we were all talking about how the Razorbacks had turned the corner on a disappointing season. That was off the strength of a 15-point win three days before Vandy rolled into Bud Walton Arena and won, 85-82. The Hogs are 1-2 since then. Musselman takes these things one day at a time, but they had some time on the plane coming back from Tuscaloosa to start talking about it as a staff.

"We’ll start talking about Vanderbilt as a staff when we get on the plane," Musselman said. "Right now, we haven’t talked about them at all because we had this game on our schedule. We’ll try to get ready for them."

He doesn't have as long as he would like. In the SEC Tournament, you don't want to be playing that opening day. But that's where the Razorbacks find themselves this year. The game will start at 6 p.m. on the SEC Network. You can also listen to the game on ESPN Arkansas 99.5 in Fayetteville, 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.

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