FAYETTEVILLE — Eric Musselman is a basketball junkie.
If you ask Johnny Jones, who hired Musselman to his staff at LSU as an assistant then later worked under Musselman at Nevada, he is consumed by the game nearly every hour of every day. It is his focus, and he never stops learning.
About the only time he relaxes is when he is around his wife, Danyelle, and his kids, or going to a movie, said South Dakota coach Todd Lee, a close friend of Musselman.
With Arkansas' 2019-20 season cut short due to the spread of coronavirus, many wondered how he would spend his time. Well, Musselman and his staff are getting creative in finding ways to remain engaged with fans as well as media members who cover the program.
On Wednesday, the Razorbacks' first-year coach posted a one-minute, 26-second video of himself coaching and shouting instruction in the men's practice gym in the Basketball Performance Center. It was business as usual for Musselman, except the gym was empty.
"(Recruiting coordinator) Pat Ackerman was the brains behind the practice," Musselman said Thursday on an hour-long teleconference. "I've got to give Pat credit. Then that led to a few other ideas that we taped."
As of Thursday afternoon, the practice video had been viewed more than 360,000 times, and it was picked up by SportsCenter's official Twitter account, where it gained another 380,000-plus views.
Then came a longer video on Thursday of Musselman in an empty Bud Walton Arena interview room, where he routinely previewed and recapped games throughout the season. The clip included jokes and personalized one-liners directed at writers and reporters from his seat behind the microphone.
Tweeted from Danyelle's account, the video has been watched almost 70,000 times. Musselman noted that he ran part of the press conference content by his wife first.
"There are like 3-4 of us (on staff) that every day just throw wild ideas off of each other," Musselman said. "We’re just trying to lighten the mood a little bit. We know the seriousness of what’s going on in the world.
"Having said that, I mean, we’re all searching for things to entertain us."
One other video has been filmed, Musselman added, but he is waiting to release it. After that, the videos will likely stop, unless Danyelle agrees to record a Flip the Switch challenge on Tik Tok, a video-sharing social networking app.
He joked that he has not yet gotten confirmation on that front.
"When you do some of the stuff that we do, you open yourself up to some vulnerability," Musselman said. "She encourages it. There would probably be a lot of wives that would say, ‘Hey, don’t do that. You’re making yourself look (silly).'
"She’s right along with it."
The videos have been a hit with the Arkansas faithful, recruits and beyond. Musselman also received text messages of approval from people in the New York Jets and New York Yankees organizations.
"We understand that right now people are on social media looking for things," he said. "Without any live sporting events, we just want to stay connected to our fan base as best we can. That’s the biggest thing, staying connected to fans and staying connected to recruits."