Less than two weeks and one highly-anticipated exhibition game separate Arkansas basketball from officially tipping off the 2023-24 regular season, which means the depth chart projections and rotation debates are reaching a fever pitch.
In addition to practices dating back to the end of May, the Hoop Hogs have completed their annual Red-White Game and a 53-point drubbing of an overmatched Division 2 school in their first exhibition.
The Razorbacks are deep, potentially more so than any roster Eric Musselman has fielded since his arrival in Fayetteville, but the head Hog is not losing any sleep over distributing minutes with his new-look roster because he has been closely evaluating each player on a daily basis for months.
Not only has he taken a deep dive into how teams with similar depth who have advanced deep into the NCAA Tournament have handled their rotations, Musselman has studied line changes in the NHL to make sure he leaves no stone unturned.
“I’m not going to stress about the minutes,” Musselman said. “I’m in the weight room with them. I run on the treadmill. I’m with them every day at practice. There are certain guys that have earned stuff, but we’re deeper, for sure. So if you’re deeper, you can look, we’ve studied rotations in Final Fours. We’ve studied NCAA tournament teams’ rotations.
“I’ve read four articles on hockey rotations and line changes this morning. Guys were laughing at me on staff. They saw that I was reading an article on the Rangers cause they know I’m a baseball fan. I told them it was the New York Rangers and not the Texas Rangers. We’re not going to sub like a hockey team, but at least I’m studying it.”
While HawgSports has fallen short of dissecting the third line of the New York Rangers, we have studied the Arkansas Razorbacks from top to bottom…
Not everything is set in stone this early in the process, and it should be clear by now that Musselman’s lineups are subject to change throughout the year. However, to provide some insight into how things currently appear to be shaking out, we’ve taken a page from the popular “Bubble Watch” articles on ESPN to label each player as locks, should be in or work left to do for a spot in the rotation: