Arkansas Basketball: 7 candidates to replace Eric Musselman as Head Coach
By Joey Loose
Following five seasons at Arkansas, Eric Musselman has been announced as the next head coach for USC. He elects to depart the Razorbacks program after a very successful half-decade, taking over a Trojans program which transitions into the Big Ten next season.
Musselman has lived and worked all over the nation. He was born in Ohio, lived several places growing up, and eventually spent his college playing days at San Diego. He’s been a basketball coach for the last 35 years, bouncing around at various levels of the sports, including long stints in professional ball.
Among the highlights of his career were stints as head coach in the NBA, CBA, and G-League, including stints leading both the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings. Musselman’s first collegiate gig came just over a decade ago on Herb Sendek’s staff at Arizona State, while his first head coaching shot came just a few seasons later.
Nevada hired him in 2015 and Musselman rewarded their trust, leading the Wolf Pack to 110 wins in four seasons, including a Sweet Sixteen run in 2018. That profound success led Arkansas to hiring him five seasons ago and he’d usher in a profoundly successful era in Fayetteville as well.
Musselman’s first season saw a rebuild interrupted by the pandemic, but things went incredibly after that. The Razorbacks made back-to-back runs to the Elite Eight before a Sweet Sixteen run in 2022. His Arkansas squad really struggled this past season, but three straight trips to the second weekend of the Big Dance certainly marks a successful program.
Despite that success, Musselman is heading back to the West Coast to take an attractive job at USC, leaving the Arkansas job open here in early April. Many of the head coaching positions have already been filled and the coaching carousel was certainly nearing its final spin for the year, leaving the Razorbacks In a less-than-advantageous position.
Today we’re going to be looking closely at some potential candidates for the open job at Arkansas. We’re a bit later than most openings and the list of candidates is a bit shorter than for some of those other jobs. In reality, there are several tiers of potential names here but we’ll give even focus to the realistic ones we could see landing in Fayetteville for the coming years. We’ll proceed alphabetically through these coaches.