'Ready to go': Corey Williams hit the ground running in Year 1

Arkansas assistant coach Corey Williams directs players on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020, against Missouri during the second half in Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE — The best way to describe Corey Williams’ state of being entering Arkansas’ 2019-20 season opener: anxious.

Not only was that Nov. 5 meeting with Rice his first game on the Razorbacks’ bench under first-year coach Eric Musselman, he was responsible for the scouting report. Williams, who had spent the previous six seasons as head coach at Stetson, wanted nothing more than to start the season on a positive note.

“This is your first opportunity on the staff and you really want to look good,” he said. “We want to look good for the boss. There’s a lot of stress involved in the first game. You compete with yourself to get those Ws because you want it. You want to be able to go back and say, ‘Man, I won all of those games that I scouted.’

“I won a majority of the games I scouted. You want to be able to say that.”

As it turned out, his scout was executed to near perfection. Arkansas handed Rice a 91-43 loss and Razorbacks guards Mason Jones and Isaiah Joe combined for 56 points.

Defensively, the team turned the Owls over 27 times, held them to 2 of 25 from 3-point range and posted the best defensive efficiency rating of Musselman’s college head coaching career (51.4), according to KenPom analytics.

“I was really proud of the way the guys came out and really played,” Williams said. “We set a standard there that we tried to always target.”

Williams, who was the first assistant coach Musselman officially hired at Arkansas, was brought on board a year ago today - on his birthday. Year 1, especially the early stages, was a whirlwind and what he called organized chaos. He immediately hit the ground running in an attempt to find players.

Williams was living out of a suitcase and traveling across the country recruiting. He remembers visiting three players in three different states in the same day. There was a two-day trip that began in Fayetteville and took him to Phoenix and Las Vegas before flying to New Jersey, then driving to Philadelphia.

The travel was extremely tiresome, he said, but at the same time he was energized by his new challenge at Arkansas.

“When I would get to the hotel I would get a bite to eat, go straight to sleep, wake up and do it all over again,” said Williams, a member of the 1993 NBA champion Chicago Bulls. “I wanted to make sure I did my part to establish the program. We had a lot of work to do and a short time to get it done.

“That was just my mindset: Whatever (Musselman) needs me to do, I’m ready to go. I’m ready to go.”

Working alongside Musselman and assistants Chris Crutchfield and Clay Moser in 2019-20 was a great experience, he added. Williams and Crutchfield were friends long before coming to Arkansas, and he always enjoys picking Moser’s brain and talking basketball.

If there is anything Williams has determined in the last year, it is that he can still grow and improve as a coach.

“You can always enhance the stuff that you’ve learned in the past and make it better," he said. "That has been attributed to Coach Muss in terms of my thinking. … Just learning a different philosophy and a different style and learning how to be a lot more creative and expanding my ideas, because that’s one of the things that he does. He’s always thinking forward."

The abrupt end to the season was also a reminder, for players and coaches, to not take the game for granted. Arkansas' team breakfast on the morning of March 12 was an emotional one, Williams recalled.

The Razorbacks, who defeated Vanderbilt in the first round of the SEC Tournament the night before, were supposed to be meeting to prepare for a game against South Carolina that night. Instead, they were met with news that numbed the room: the tournament was canceled.

"I mean, (everything) completely stopped," Williams said. "That blew your mind. We couldn’t believe it. Nobody could believe it. That day turned from a day you were preparing to play to a senior breakfast where the seniors had to get up and speak.

"We all were taken back, and I think (Musselman) said it best. He pushed those guys and they worked so hard, and all of a sudden now you can’t continue the journey you started that you had worked so hard for. All of a sudden now it was over."

Musselman's motivational pregame speeches and the way the staff prepared for games stand out as Williams' favorite moments from 2019-20. He was also proud of the Razorbacks' final win against Vanderbilt, their 20th of the season.

That, too, was Williams' scout.

"Incredible. Incredible year," he said. "For me, it was a great year and a great experience as a coach. ... Our team never quit. We never gave up. We fought to the very end."