FAYETTEVILLE – The University of Arkansas men’s basketball program held its first official practice for the 2019-20 season Tuesday afternoon at the Eddie Sutton Men’s Basketball Practice Gym.
First-year head coach Eric Musselman deemed today “the start of training camp.” His team has been able to work out since his arrival in April, but a majority of that time was spent on team development. Today, the program turned its focus on the 2019-20 season.
“We have been pleased with the buy-in, effort, energy and enthusiasm that our guys have shown,” Musselman said. “Now it becomes a grind, this training camp segment. When you don’t have a game, you need to have mental toughness to get through practices in order to accomplish what we want between now and our first game.”
The fans will get their first look t the 2019-20 team on Oct. 5 (Saturday) at the annual Red-White game. The scrimmage is set for 3 pm and will be played in Barnhill Arena.
Here are some notes about the 2019-20 team and upcoming season:
This is year 97 of Razorback basketball and Arkansas will play three teams, Rice, TCU and Texas A&M, that appeared on the team’s schedule during its first year of basketball, 1923-24.
The NCAA extended the men’s 3-point arc nearly two feet to 22-feet, 1.75-inches (previously 20-feet, 9-inches). Arkansas played from the extended 3-point arc during its two NIT games this past season. The Hogs made 18 in the two games and was an impressive 10-of-21 (.476) in the Providence win.
Arkansas has the fourth-longest streak of making at least one 3-pointer at 1,011 games, one game ahead of 2019-20 opponent Western Kentucky. The top three teams on the list at UNLY (1,070), Vanderbilt (1,063) and Duke (1.059).
Arkansas returns four starters (Isaiah Joe, Jalen Harris, Mason Jones and Adrio Bailey), two reserves (Desi Sills and Reggie Chaney) that averaged over 16 minutes per game and a total of eight lettermen.
Despite losing its top scorer and rebounder, current Chicago Bull Daniel Gafford, Arkansas still returns 68.8 percent of its scoring and 62.6 percent of its rebounding. Arkansas returns 88 percent of its 3-pointers made, 83.2 percent of its assists, 68.9 percent of its free throws made and 63.8 percent of its steals. Also, even with Gafford gone to the NBA, Arkansas still returns over half of its blocked shots.
Graduate transfers Jeantal Cylla and Jimmy Whitt Jr., bring nearly 1,900 career points to the team. Cylla has scored 984 points in his three-year career and Whitt, who began his career at Arkansas before transferring to SMU and back to Arkansas, has scored 910 points in his career. By comparison, Cylla and Whitt have combined for 1,894 points in their career. The top six returning players from last season (Joe, Jones, Harris, Bailey, Chaney and Sills) have combined to score 1,922 points.
Arkansas is the only team in the SEC to have two of the top five returning scorers from last year. Joe (13.85 ppg) is the third-best returning scorer in the league and Jones (13.62 ppg) is fourth.
Isaiah Joe made 113 3-pointers last season to set the school record, tie the SEC freshman record and rank fourth on the NCAA list of 3’s made by a freshman. Joe additionally became the first freshman to lead the SEC in 3-point shooting percentage (.413). Amazingly, Joe only needs to make 40 more 3-pointers (or approximately 12 games this season) to enter the Arkansas all-time top 10.
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