Eric Musselman using upset picks to motivate Arkansas

The Vermont Catamounts are looking like a popular upset pick in a lot of March Madness brackets, and Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman is not shying away from that. In fact, he’s trying to use it as a motivational tactic.

“Do you think I talk to the team about it? Yeah,” Musselman said, via Isaac Trotter of 247 Sports. “They’ve seen all the clips, and they’ll continue to see the clips just as they did last year. Yeah, it’s — my wife continues to remind me. It’s not everybody. Yeah, I mean, I think anyway, shape, or form that you can motivate your team, that’s our job to try to figure out every button that you can possibly push to get your team in the right mental frame.”

Musselman led Arkansas to an Elite Eight appearance in 2021, though he had to survive a stiff challenge from 15th-seeded Oral Roberts in the Sweet Sixteen to get there. Expectations will remain high for the Razorbacks in light of that, possibly making Vermont an even scarier proposition.

We know from precedent that Musselman pays attention to these things and sometimes takes them personally. Vermont has hardly given him any bulletin board material, but the media may have done enough motivating on its own.