While fans worried themselves sick last week about whether Kelvin Briles was leaving Arkansas football, they should have been thinking about basketball and Eric Musselman.
Because if the University of Texas, suddenly pursuing a successor to the fired Chris Beard, isn't considering the Arkansas coach, they don't care as much about the sport in Austin as I think.
On about any list one consults -- whether Angie's or ESPN's Joe Lunardi's -- Musselman's name should rank high. Or the Sabine River, rather than the Colorado, runs through Austin and the natives listen to Michael Bolton rather than Willie Nelson.
One way to "keep Austin weird," an unofficial slogan that the state capital of Texas abides by, is to make a dull and inspired basketball hire. That could be fatal with college basketball in Texas on the rise, Baylor winning the NCAA title in 2021 and Houston with a recent Final Four appearance and propelled back to No. 1 nationally. Two more names for the Longhorns' list: Baylor's Scott Drew and, the man Arkansas considered before hiring Musselman, Houston's Kelvin Sampson.
You might be wondering about Bill Self at Kansas, reigning NCAA basketball champion? I wouldn't. People only leave Kansas for North Carolina (Roy Williams) or another elite basketball program, and Texas is not that. Arkansas may have had a chance to lure Self way back there but it's unlikely now.
Musselman, 58, may be perfectly content in Fayetteville, thank you. Nolan Richardson proved that one can win the NCAA title at Arkansas, and Musselman, in his fourth year there, is filling the seats again -- something a Razorback basketball coach must do, as a couple of former men's and women's coaches can attest. Unlike Richardson, Musselman shouldn't be getting any in-house interference.
What we know about Musselman, son of a former college and pro coach, is that he is a basketball lifer. One does not seek out Rapid City, South Dakota, as a workplace otherwise. He coached the NBA's Golden State Warriors for two years before Stephen Curry came to town. Quite naturally, he traded up, taking the Arkansas job, after four seasons of 110-34 at Nevada.
Coach Muss, as fans call him, has rekindled fires for basketball that dissipated when Mike Anderson, a nice man but almost void of on-court passion, coached the Razorbacks. He is 85-31 midway through his fourth year at Arkansas off 20-12, 25-7 and 28-9 with his current team 12-3 and resting at No. 15 in the polls.
Bud Walton Arena should be hopping Wednesday night when Arkansas plays No. 4 Alabama. Anyone keeping up with the college game likely jotted down the name of Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats when hearing the news about Beard at Texas.
Ours is a much looser society than in the Ozzie and Harriet years of the 1950s, when I checked in. But this remains part of the Bible Belt, and people pay attention when this coach or that is caught with a woman not his wife -- you could ask new Texas A&M football hire Bobby Petrino, whose career went off the road, in more ways than one, in a motorcycle accident on April Fools' Day 2012 before what would be his fifth year at Arkansas. Wide-ranging rumors surrounded the last years at Arkansas of the late Eddie Sutton in basketball.
Someone identified as Chris Del Conte and Texas athletic director -- what, you thought Darrell Royal or DeLoss Dodds was still around? -- announced Thursday that UT "has parted ways with Chris Beard ... (in wake of) a difficult situation that we've been diligently working through."
They don't get much more difficult than domestic abuse, for which Beard was arrested on the morning of Dec. 12 after his fiance, Randi Trew, told officers he choked her, bit her and hit her when the two got in an argument.
Beard's attorney deemed his client "100 percent innocent of these charges," and Trew later released a statement denying she told police Beard choked her. Perry Minton said Texas acted without asking his client or Trew for details.
Beard was in the second year of a fully guaranteed, seven-year contract that says he can be fired for cause of conduct that includes a felony charge. Minton contends "the university has violated their agreement with the coach and we are devastated."
The news from Austin came with Texas high in the national polls (without Beard, they won Saturday at Oklahoma State after losing a shootout at home with Kansas State). This is the same coach who did the unthinkable at UALR, win 30 games and reach the NCAA tournament. He then took Texas Tech to the Final Four before succeeding Shaka Smart in Austin.
If we're guessing right, it should take nothing more than a winning Arkansas program to make Texas interested in Musselman, whose 2021-22 team knocked off No. 1 Auburn at home and Gonzaga in March Madness. The Longhorns are unwise to hire another Bob Weltlich (Abe Lemons' regrettable replacement) to replace Beard -- not if they care about basketball, even to a lesser degree than football.
John Calipari's name came up over the weekend, especially after Kentucky scored 52 in a 26-point loss at Alabama. It has been 11 years, remember, since Calipari won the NCAA title with Anthony Davis, rival Louisville a more recent national champion. Kentucky fans might be tired of its increasing role as an NBA feeder program, of which Calipari has heaped praise back to his days at Massachusetts and Memphis.
About to join the Southeastern Conference, Texas can blow the lid off college basketball with an expected big-name hire. That's a bigger story to me than whoever calls offensive plays for a football team (Arkansas) with a subpar SEC defense. Unless beating Kansas in the Liberty Bowl makes one want to crank up the jukebox in the football locker room.