FAYETTEVILLE — The question posed Thursday to Eric Musselman was in regards to what he felt Arkansas freshman guard KK Robinson brought to the lineup in the Razorbacks’ 72-60 win over UT-Arlington.
Arkansas’ second-year coach noted that Robinson, who pitched in three points, one assist and fouled out in his 13 minutes against the Mavericks, knocked down a critical left-corner 3-pointer in the second half as the Razorbacks’ second team sputtered offensively. He then shifted gears.
“I don’t have a stat sheet in front of me, but I think the one category at the bottom of the stat sheet that they beat us in was bench scoring,” he said. “We talk about our bench, well, our bench got out-played last night. Plain and simple.”
Robinson’s left-corner triple, his first of the season, was one of two scores produced by Arkansas’ reserves. JD Notae added the only other made field goal by the group in the first half.
UT-Arlington outscored the Razorbacks’ bench 18-8. Wednesday also marked the second consecutive game in which Robinson and Notae were the lone scoring contributors off the bench.
Vance Jackson, who started in the season opener and poured in 15 points on 5 of 9 from the floor, is scoreless in his last two games. Each of his three 3-point attempts Wednesday rattled out, he missed both of his 2-point looks and turned the ball over three times.
“(Jalen) Tate and Connor (Vanover) and Moses (Moody), I thought, offensively, kind of carried us as far as converting shots,” Musselman said Wednesday.
Jackson, however, appears confident he will bounce back from his rough shooting stretch, writing Thursday in a tweet, “Due for (an) explosion. I trust my work.” Seventeen times in his career he has added 10-plus points following a scoreless or single-digit scoring game.
After playing 24 minutes in each of the team’s first two games, Notae saw his playing time cut in half against UT-Arlington and he did not see the floor in the second half.
He exited the game at one point in the first half favoring his hand, and Musselman said in his postgame interview that he thought the guard’s thumb “popped out of place.” Thursday, he said Notae is fine injury-wise.
But his shot selection in the win wasn’t. He finished 1 of 5 from the floor, and the four misses included a few ill-advised attempts.
“He might have grabbed (his hand) because he knew what was coming,” Musselman said. “I wasn’t real happy with the quick shots. He’s fine. We need him to score.
“We just need him to take shots that have a probability of going in the rim.”
There was one positive Musselman took away from his reserves, and that was the play of forward Jaylin Williams. The 6-10 freshman did not score in his 12 minutes, but he took two charges, blocked a shot and tallied a steal.
Williams is earning the trust of the Razorbacks’ coaching staff and his teammates through his effort.
“He’ll go in and do whatever the team needs him to do,” Musselman said. “I thought he was really, really good. I couldn’t be happier with the way that Jaylin Williams has played.
"I thought he gave us a really good boost off the bench and I thought he did exactly what we needed him to do."