Tempers flared in Nashville when Arkansas got eliminated from the SEC Tournament.
The Razorbacks lost 67-61 on Friday night, as Texas A&M overcame a 13-point deficit, and there were a number of times where Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman had to be restrained by assistant coaches.
After the game, when Arkansas was leaving the court, a Razorbacks assistant coach grabbed a student journalist’s phone and tossed it to the ground.
“Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman left the court in a rage of f-bombs after losing to Texas A&M in the #SECMBB Tournament,” tweeted Jack Weaver, a photographer and photo editor for the Kentucky Kernel.
“His assistant then grabbed my phone and threw it at the ground.”
In the video of the incident, you can hear someone saying, “Hey, good job today,” before the phone gets grabbed away.
The video did not capture Musselman’s alleged vulgarity.
The assistant coach was identified by OutKick as Riley Hall, the director of internal operations for the Razorbacks.
“The Kentucky Kernel is appalled by the actions of the Arkansas mens basketball program. @jack_weaver_ always embodies professionalism on the job and no journalist, especially a student journalist, should be subjected to violence for simply doing their job,” the student paper tweeted.
After the game, Musselman didn’t address his outbursts, but did talk about the foul disparity in the second half.
“If you get down 7-0 in the foul count at any level, whether it’s CYO, college, the NBA, it affects your aggressiveness defensively, especially a team that shoots foul shots percentage-wise as well as Texas A&M has all season long,” Musselman said, according to the Associated Press.
The Razorbacks are 20-13 and projected as an 8-seed in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi.
Musselman said that the loss will hurt him for awhile, but gave credit to his opponents.
“For much of the game we had a lead. I mean, we had a lead for 27 minutes or whatever,” Musselman said. “Obviously we played a very good first half and a poor second half. I give Texas A&M credit for their second-half play.”
Texas A&M plays Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament semifinals on Saturday.
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