FAYETTEVILLE — University of Arkansas basketball players are taking final exams this week. The Razorbacks also are being tested in practice.
“This is training camp mode,” Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman said Monday night on his radio show.
After the Razorbacks (9-1) lost to Oklahoma 88-66 in Tulsa last Saturday, they will have a full week of practice. Their next game isn’t until this Saturday night against Hofstra (6-5) at Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock.
Musselman said he wants Arkansas to play well against Hofstra, but that he’s taking the same approach as last season after the Razorbacks lost at LSU 92-76 — and trailed by 31 points in the first half.
The Razorbacks’ next game was at Alabama four days later, and Musselman conducted his most grueling practice of the season two days before taking on the Crimson Tide.
Alabama beat Arkansas 90-59, but the Razorbacks then put together a 12-game winning streak against SEC teams and eventually reached the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight for the first time since 1995.
“Just like last year after we got drubbed at LSU and we had Alabama coming up, I’m looking at this week [the same],” Musselman said. “This is for the long haul, how we’re constructing practice.”
Arkansas has seven scholarship newcomers who didn’t experience what Musselman put the team through between the LSU and Alabama road games last season.
“We want to win the game Saturday, no doubt,” he said. “But we’re going to make a mark in their brains and hearts on what it’s like when you lose here.
“We’re not going to ease up in practice this week. I can promise you that.”
Arkansas fell to No. 24 from No. 12 in the latest Associated Press poll released on Monday.
“Oklahoma played really good,” Musselman said. “We did not play good. But I think that when you lose a game, the objective is to try to figure out where you have to improve.
“Sometimes when you win, it’s hard to grab players’ attention.”
Musselman said he and his coaching staff had the Razorbacks’ full attention Monday.
“We had not a good practice, we had a great practice,” Musselman said. “We had our longest film session since I’ve been at Arkansas.
“We had as intense a practice as you could possibly have, and we will defend the three against a great three-point shooting team in Hofstra.”
Hofstra is averaging 10.7 three-point baskets per game to rank 17th nationally. The Pride has hit 118 of 325 (36.3%), including Jalen Ray (32 of 70), Omar Siverio (30 of 75) and Zach Cooks (22 of 69).
Arkansas ranks 316th nationally in three-point defense at 37.3%. Opponents have hit 97 of 260 three-pointers, including 13 of 22 by Oklahoma.
“Our biggest weakness is defending the three,” Musselman said. “Hofstra’s biggest strength is shooting the three.”
Musselman said the Razorbacks are changing how they cover pick-and-roll three-pointers and also may need to go with a smaller lineup at times to get more quickness on the court.
Getting newcomers adjusted to how Arkansas needs to play three-point defense, he said, also is a factor.
“Now it’s a matter of our new players doing exactly like we want, and from a detail standpoint,” he said. “That’s really what we dove into [Monday].”
Four Arkansas newcomers — Stanley Umude, Chris Lykes and Trey Wade — are fifth-year graduate transfers and Au’Diese Toney played three seasons at Pittsburgh.
“If you played four years of college basketball, you’re going to have habits,” Musselman said. “And we’re not going to break habits in the first nine games after they’ve been playing four years.
“So we’ve got to make several adjustments in our technique … [Monday] was a step in the right direction.”
Musselman said he also is changing the slogan for guarding three-pointers.
“We have a thing defensively that we say, ‘When you close out, put a hand in the eyeballs,’ ” he said. “I adjusted that, and now your hand has got to be above the eyeballs. Then maybe they’ll end up getting to the eyeballs.
“We’re going to have to get close to players and make them put the ball on the deck, and we’re going to have to run people off the three-point line.”
Official Gerry Pollard called two technical fouls on Musselman with 3:30 left in the game against Oklahoma, resulting in an automatic ejection.
A fan asked Musselman during his radio show about the process of communicating with officials and figuring out which ones will allow him to be more expressive and which ones won’t.
“I’d love to really speak freely, but I know half our writers listen to this and then they put it in the paper,” Musselman said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I’d love to just sit here and have fun with you guys, but I know some of it I’ll read, if I say anything.
“So I probably have to just say we have really good refs.”
A fan also asked Musselman what he wants for Christmas.
“Just a bunch of wins,” he said. “I don’t need anything else. I don’t need anything in my stocking, nothing, just some more wins.”