We’re approaching the best time of the year for sports fans. That fall crispness is in the air, football season is in full swing and basketball is just on the horizon.
The preseason hoops hubbub came to its apex this week with SEC Media Days in Birmingham, Ala., which gave reporters and fans a true first glance at the new-look SEC – and boy, how things have changed.
Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari showed up donning Razorback red, as much as he tried to call out sick, and Texas and Oklahoma hoops appeared among their new conference peers for the first time.
Expectations are high for the Hogs heading into Coach Cal’s first season, with Arkansas ranked 16th in the preseason AP poll and picked to finish fourth in the SEC media poll. Yet amongst all this excitement, it was a moment from a former Razorback that drew quite a bit of attention.
Jaxson Robinson Gives Eric Musselman the Cold Shoulder
New Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope brought in a litany of new transfers heading into his first year in Lexington, but the cream of that crop was former Texas A&M, Arkansas and BYU guard Jaxson Robinson. Now at his fourth school, the sharpshooting wing has blossomed from a four-star prospect who struggled to get on the court as an underclassmen to a legitimate NBA prospect in the 2025 draft class.
One of the best shooters in the country, Robinson led Pope’s Cougars in scoring last season – and will look to showcase his talents for Pope again at one of the nation’s premier blue bloods this year.
Robinson will also get the chance to face off against two of his three former schools on Kentucky’s conference slate in both Texas A&M and Arkansas, and it sounds like he’s got plenty of motivation heading into those matchups.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Bob Holt asked Robinson on Tuesday if there was anything he learned from former Head Hog Eric Musselman during his one season at Arkansas, and his answer could not have been more blunt.
Yikes. Not exactly a glowing review of one of his former coaches. Usually, players pay their respects to their former schools’ staffs even if things didn’t turn out well, so for Robinson to be so cold towards Coach Muss certainly raised some eyebrows.
The knee-jerk reactions from Razorback fans were pretty harsh on Robinson, with one Twitter user replying that he “transfers seven times because he can’t cut it in the SEC and then says some bulls*** like this…shocker.”
“Someone’s upset he didn’t get playing time,” another said with a crying/laughing emoji.
But when you take Robinson’s perspective into account, his answer comes across as perfectly reasonable.
Robinson Got Short End of Stick from Muss and Co.
The former Aggie transferred to Arkansas for the 2021-22 season to fulfill a need for more perimeter shooters, yet Robinson was never really given the chance to play that role for the Hogs.
He appeared in less than half of the team’s games, averaging just over 10 minutes per contest. Many of those stints involved Robinson checking into the game for just a few minutes, shooting a couple off-target threes and then getting a quick hook by Musselman. While it’s easy to write that off as understandable given his role was to sink threes, that’s not exactly a recipe for confidence and success for your players.
Muss was notoriously ruthless with his substitutions throughout his tenure at Arkansas, often making quick-twitch subs after ill-advised shots or turnovers. If you looked over to the bench after those decisions, you’d see a livid Coach Muss storm down the bench to find another player and gesture him towards the scorers’ table.
That rigorous accountability had its perks, as seen by the Hogs’ NCAA Tournament successes in that period, but it also led to players having long slumps throughout the season as they struggled to gain a rhythm. Sometimes, you’ve got to give players a bit longer leash to make some mistakes and figure things out as they go. That’s often the best way that players develop.
Calipari, a man famous for frequently deploying true freshmen as his lead guards to run the offense, can attest to this fact. John Wall averaged four turnovers per game at Kentucky, but he also played 35 minutes per game and ended up being a First-Team All American. Imagine if Coach Cal had yanked Wall out of the game after every dumb pass? He likely wouldn’t have had the time to develop on the fly and blossom into the superstar that he became.
That player-first approach is likely why Calipari garners such universal praise from his former players.
Granted, Robinson was far from the blue-chip prospect that Wall was, and Musselman took a more lenient approach with five-star Razorbacks like Anthony Black’s playing time. Highly-touted prospect Moses Moody also got a bit more slack during his struggles in the NCAA Tournament. But there are still some young Hogs whose growth was stunted by the notorious Musselman doghouse.
Other Razorback players such as Layden Blocker suffered a similar fate, as the Little Rock native showed a lot of promise as a freshman but never really got the playing time he needed to develop. He eventually transferred out, well before news broke of Musselman’s departure to USC.
Musselman’s Rash Decisions Came Back to Bite Him
In hindsight, Musselman could have used a player like Robinson in his final two years at Arkansas. Both of those teams were really hurt by the lack of a reliable three-point shooter, a role he could have filled if he had been given slightly more slack and time to develop by his head coach.
The Head Hog tried to thrust Joseph Pinion into that wing shooting role a few times, but he ended up similar to Robinson – a quick hook to the bench after a couple missed threes. Eventually, he too left the program.
Perimeter shooting and lack of development of young players in part led to the derailment of the Muss Bus last season – and those are two things Robinson certainly could have helped out with.
When you add in all this context, it’s easy to see why the newly-minted Wildcat was bitter towards a former coach that he felt never really gave him an opportunity to succeed. A couple Arkansas fans took Robinson’s side on the matter, saying it was perfectly understandable for him to be so blunt.
You also have to credit Robinson for his composure in the face of Bob Holt’s question. The saying goes that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything – and that’s a rule he followed perfectly in this exchange.
Although Musselman is no longer at Arkansas, Robinson is surely ready to show that the third time’s the charm when it comes to cutting it in the SEC. The guys over at Sleepers Media referred to it as a “manufactured chip on his shoulder,” even going as far as likening the overlapping drama between Arkansas, Kentucky and BYU as some kind of after-hours Mormon twist on “swinging.”
“There’s so many moving parts it feels like we’re just wife-swapping here, right?” co-host Greg Waddell joked. “Musselman was at Arkansas with Jaxson Robinson, who was at BYU with Mark Pope. Now Mark Pope’s at Kentucky, which used to have John Calipari, who now works at Arkansas…my brain is kind of breaking.”
Calipari will just have to hope that Robinson doesn’t swing his vitriol towards from Musselman to the current seat when Kentucky faces the Hogs on February 1.
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Full Sleepers Media segment on Jaxson Robinson’s comments:
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More coverage of Arkansas basketball from BoAS: