For the first time in the Eric Musselman era, Arkansas has made the Big Dance. The Razorbacks are the No. 3 seed in the South Region of the 2021 NCAA Tournament.

It’s the first March Madness appearance for Arkansas since 2018, the same year Musselman took Nevada to the Sweet 16.

“I think everybody is really excited,” Musselman told the media, per Scottie Bordelon of Whole Hog Sports. “I’ve been a part of a lot of these, and every single one of them feels the same way when you see your name up there.

“I told (the team) before the show came on that, No. 1, what an honor it was to know that we were playing in this tournament. You can never, ever, ever as a player, as a coach, as an administrator, as a booster, as a former player, an alumni, as a fan, you can never take for granted how hard it is to get into this tournament. It’s really hard.”

Arkansas will face 14-seed Colgate, a team that excels at shooting the three-ball and defending opponents’ from beyond the arc, in the opening round.

“We’ve got to come up with some drills to defend the three, we’ve got to keep their guards in front of us,” Musselman said. “We can’t let them get to the hole. They’re an analytics team. They make threes, they make layups, so we look forward to the prep over the next few days.”

The tipoff time for the game has not yet been announced.