The Arkansas coach must be held during a loss before the employee throws the student reporter’s phone

Arkansas coach Eric Musselman had to be held back when his team left the Southeastern Conference tournament early at the hands of No. 18 Texas A&M.

The Razorbacks suffered a 67-61 loss Friday night in the quarterfinals as the Aggies recovered from a 13-point deficit.

And Musselman’s frustrations boiled over as he made his anger very clear with Razorback’s aides who had to restrain him a few times during the defeat.

But after the game, tensions reached a peak a student journalist had taken his phone and thrown it on the floor by an Arkansas staffer who was walking behind Musselman as he left court.

The journalist, Jack Weaver, tweeted that Musselman stormed the court “in a fury of f-bombs” alongside a video of the incident showing the team member, identified as Razorbacks video coordinator Riley Hall by CBS reporter Lee K. Howardgrabbing the phone.

The Kentucky Kernel, the independent student newspaper of the University of Kentucky, issued a statement following the incident involving its journalist.

The Kentucky Kernel is shocked by the actions of the men’s basketball program in Arkansas. …no journalist, and certainly not a student journalist, should be subjected to violence simply because he is doing his job,’ the statement said.

Musselman did not mention any outbursts when he met with reporters after the game.

“When you’re 7-0 behind in fouls at any level, whether it’s CYO, college, or the NBA, it impacts your defensive aggressiveness, especially a team that shoots fouls percentage-wise and Texas A&M has all the season long,” said Musselman.

Wade Taylor scored 18 points to help Texas A&M (24-8) advance to the Semifinals for the second year in a row, where it will face Vanderbilt, who beat Kentucky.

Arkansas (20-13) must now wait until Sunday’s NCAA Tournament bracket announcement to learn the fate of the postseason.

Musselman said it would take some time to get over this stinging loss.

“We had a lead for much of the game. I mean, we had a lead of 27 minutes or whatever,” Musselman said. ‘Of course we played a very good first half and a mediocre second half. I give Texas A&M credit for their play in the second half.”

The Razorbacks suffered a 67-61 loss in the Southeastern Conference quarterfinals on Friday

The Razorbacks coach said it would take a while to get over this stinging loss

Coach Buzz Williams said his second-seeded Aggies weren’t good in the first half and it didn’t help that Taylor was in trouble early on.

“We tried to play him as best we could offensively for defense,” said Williams. “Nine substitutions is not good. Nine blocked shots is not good. The reason they shot 55% is that we gave them the ball 18 times and never got our defense.”

Henry Coleman III had 16 points and 11 rebounds for Texas A&M. Dennis Dexter and Tyrece Radford each added 11 points.

Nick Smith led Arkansas with 16 points and Makhi Mitchell finished with 15.

Jordan Walsh made a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Razorbacks a 38-25 lead at halftime.

Texas A&M trailed 40-27 early in the second half before taking a 46-45 lead on Dexter’s jump shot with 10:26 left.

Coleman said none of the Aggies panicked.

“Our leaders came forward and said the right things,” Coleman said. “Coach came in and prepared us for the second half. We didn’t really play Texas A&M basketball in the first half. I thought our ability to go downhill, control the free throw line and control the glass was a big key.”