FAYETTEVILLE — Kelsi Musick began her stint as the Arkansas women’s basketball coach with a simple promise.
“I run a high-octane offense, so the one other thing that we love to do is put points on the board,” she said. “We’re not going to play slow, we’re going to play fast. We’re going to get up and down and force the issue on the offensive end.”
Her teams do, in fact, play fast.
This season at Oral Roberts, the Golden Eagles played at the No. 6 tempo in the country, according to BartTorvik, and scored 80 or more points 16 times this season — including a 94-73 victory over Arkansas on Nov. 21 at Bud Walton Arena.
The five teams that played faster than Oral Roberts this season were Oklahoma, North Carolina Central, Niagara, Tennessee and Troy. The Sooners and Lady Vols are still in the NCAA Tournament while the Trojans are hosting a second-round WNIT game.
Playing at a fast pace doesn’t guarantee results — NC Central and Niagara had 12 wins between them — but it opens the floor to a brand of basketball that is exciting for the spectator and entertaining for the player.
And Musick will stay true to that brand of basketball.
Her Oral Roberts teams played at a top-six pace in each of her seasons in charge. She built the Golden Eagles that way, improving their win total in each year there with a dribble-drive approach, and had one of the top Division II programs in the country at Southwestern Oklahoma State playing the same brand.
The Razorbacks played at the No. 52 tempo and are overall 18 places below Oral Roberts in Torvik’s rankings of each Division I program.
“I think if someone could win at the Division II level the way she won and go to a national championship game and win at Oral Roberts, she can win here,” Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek said. “She’s proven that. She has built programs….She can do it here.”
Much of that comes down to personnel.
Musick said she has not met with the Arkansas team yet due to players being on Spring Break. Individual meetings will take place once players are back on campus. She said there are “quality players that we currently have” and said she wants to retain some of the current Razorbacks.
She also mentioned the importance of recruiting the NCAA transfer portal, which officially opens Tuesday.
“There will be a lot of things taking place,” Musick said, “and it will happen extremely quick.”
She also will need to hire a coaching staff to fit that style.
Musick said she will retain assistant coach Lacey Goldwire and will meet with other staff members throughout the week and moving forward.
“I think that establishing that is extremely important as we move forward in the recruitment process,” Musick said. “I think the first three things is definitely staff, portal and our current team. Establishing those three things will allow us to move forward and figure everything else out.”
Musick will build her roster and staff around her run-and-gun, uptempo style.
Yurachek said he felt Arkansas would have the resources to compete in a league that sent 10 teams to the NCAA Tournament, though he said, “we’re not going to be at the top of the SEC [financially], but we’re going to be definitively in the ballgame.”
Yurachek said women’s basketball will be one of the programs participating in revenue sharing and that there would be patience as Musick rebuilds the program.
All of those factors will shape how Musick builds her debut Arkansas roster, which will be expected to move at one of the fastest tempos in the country.
“You have to get back and you’ve got to guard, but definitely that energy, that level of passion and to perform at the highest level, that’s extremely important,” she said. “I’m definitely known for my high-octane offense, and that will definitely be taking place here.”