From a trainwreck to the Sweet 16 is how the Arkansas Razorbacks 2024-25 season went from start to finish.
John Calipari arrived in Fayetteville with no roster, built through the portal and tacked on most of his recruiting class from Kentucky. All Calipari did was follow recent seasons for the Hogs by underachieving throughout most of the year before getting hot at the right time. Eric Musselman’s tenure wrapped up in disappointment, but the five seasons provided some big hits of success. In Cal’s one season, the Hogs entered conference play with a single Quad 1 win, and proceeded to lost five straight games to open the season, culminating with an embarrassing loss at Missouri.
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The back court was a mess with things running through Boogie Fland, but he was sidelined with a wrist injury before things began to take shape. Without Fland, Florida Atlantic transfer Johnell Davis stepped into a primary role. He and the rest of the Hogs settled into roles, and they turned the season around.
Then, unlike most of the rest of the league, Arkansas returned a healthy amount of production. Coupled with Cal’s natural penchant for high school recruiting and you have one of the more intriguing rosters in the league.
Previous SEC Previews
Arkansas Preview
Arkansas Razorbacks
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Last season: 22 – 14 (8-10 in conference) #36
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The Masses Prediction: 5th in conference, 12 – 6
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SEC Media Pick: 5th in conference
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Analytics Average: 5th in conference, 21st overall
HEAD COACH: John Calipari | 2nd Season, 22-14
Already a Hall of Fame basketball coach, there isn’t much left to be said in a basketball preview about John Calipari. He’s a national champion who’s won more than 800 games on the sideline. He took UMass to a Final Four, he resurrected Memphis basketball, built Kentucky into a juggernaut, and now got Arkansas back into the Sweet 16. There isn’t much left for Cal to accomplish as a head basketball coach. There will be a time when Calipari hangs it up. It’s even possible that time will be sooner than later, but for now Cal is on the sidelines in Fayetteville.
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Always quirky and quotable, Cal’s fastball has been slipping for years. His recruiting is still excellent, but the changes in NIL and revenue sharing have eroded at least a portion of the Calipari pitch to high school recruits. There were years when Kentucky would sign 3 or 4 top 10 players, and that’s getting harder and hard.
But even a diminished Calipari is a good basketball coach, and a formidable recruiter. Where he’s always been the best is at taking highly talented rosters and getting them to defend. But the defense has slipped in recent years. Then there’s been the entire SEC investing heavily into basketball. So the playing field for Cal has leveled. But this is the best roster, comparatively to the rest of the league, Calipari has had in several years. So the expectations go up.
There are a lot of peaks and valleys, but even when Arkansas has been down there hasn’t been a bottom out. Musselman peaked in his second and this year, but still made the NCAA Tournament every year but the last one. Mike Anderson made the tournament in three of the last five years. If they make it this year it will be six of seven. The bottom of the margin is set on being an NCAA tournament team.
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LOST PRODUCTION
1st in % minutes, 52.34% | 2nd in % points, 58.84% | 2nd in % possessions, 57.30%
Last year was the first year since 2007 that John Calipari did not have a player drafted in the 1st round of the NBA draft. Adou Thiero entered the draft and was picked 36th in the second round. Boogie Fland entered the draft and the transfer portal and ultimately picked the portal, and the Florida Gators. And Zvonimir Ivišić decided to join his brother Tomislav in Champaign for a season with Brad Underwood and the Fighting Illini.
The Hogs also graduated Jonas Aidoo and Johnell Davis.
One of the more interesting returnees is D.J. Wagner. For two seasons now Wagner has been one of the more disappointing players in the Calipari cadre. The former 5-star guard and son of Dajuan Wagner, who played for Cal at Memphis, struggled with an ankle injury in his freshman season at Kentucky. But last season Wagner saw his minutes turned up to a maximum, without any improvement to his shooting and effiency on offense. Wagner can still be a plus player, but with some big time young talent coming in there was some thought he might test the transfer portal. Ultimately he chose to stay, coming back with a block of talented underclassmen like Billy Richmond (another son of a former Cal player) and Karter Knox.
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Knox was the player many thought might stay in the NBA draft, after declaring after the season. Knox started slow but became one of the biggest keys to the Hogs resurgance down the stretch with his ability to stretch the floor and defend. In the final 12 games of the season he averaged 11.5 points per game and shot 42.4% from outside the arc. The points may not jump out, but 20 points against Texas Tech, 15 against St. John’s, and 14 against Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament were all showing what sort of impact Knox can have this year, and why NBA teams were tracking him a lot closer later in the season.
Needing to replace some beef inside, Arkansas dipped into the transfer portal for Florida State big man Malique Ewin. For the Seminoles last year, Ewin scored 14.2 ppg and 7.6 rebounds, but did so in just 26.2 minutes. He was good around the rim, and in fact he only really takes shots around the rim. 89% of his shot attempts were determined to be at the rim, per Synergy.
The star of the class might be Darius Acuff, and explosive point guard with the physical profile and body control to be an elite player at the college and NBA level.
Ewin is joined in the rotation by frequent SEC transfer Nick Pringle. Pringle started his college career at Wofford in 2020-21, spent a season in Junior College and then found his way to Alabama for two years before trying South Carolina last year. Pringle is a similar big to Ewin in that he’s not going to stray far from the basket for offense. Synergy clocked him for 90.1% of his shot attempts being at the rim.
In typical Calipari form, he’s landed some elite recruits. The star of the class might be Darius Acuff, and explosive point guard with the physical profile and body control to be an elite player at the college and NBA level. Acuff’s addition will be one to track with how it impacts Wagner, as Wagner is still learning to be a primary ball handler, and Acuff has been one all along.
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Acuff and Meleek Thomas will try to play spoiler roles within the rotation, Thomas is a more natural combo guard who is capable of spacing the floor, but will look to attack close outs and isn’t afraid to take tough shots or get the free throw line.
One of the areas that boosted the Hogs profile last year was the tightening of the rotation without Fland, and the subsequent settling of roles with players who were accustomed to being primary scoring options. Davis struggled moving away from the ball, and found his groove and home once possessions were going back towards him.
Against Memphis in their exhibition win, Arkansas started Pringle over Ewin but both played a healthy amount of minutes with Ewin finishing with 25 minutes, and Pringle limited with foul trouble. And Acuff and Thomas took the most shots. But the rest of the rotation looked about what is expected.
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There are some injury concerns early as Lebanese forward Karim Rtail had back surgery and is expected to miss a good chunk of the season, and Paulo Semedo may take a redshirt as well. Leaving Calipari again with a short bench, but a quality rotation of eight players.
The good news here is Arkansas will again play a host of top 20 level teams as they start early in the season with a road trip to Michigan State, then host Louisville and Houston at home. As well as heading to neutral courts for take on Texas Tech and Duke. The Louisville game is part of the ACC-SEC Challenge.
While the non-conference is challenging, Arkansas gets as much of a break as you can get in the SEC scheduling. They only play the Florida Gators on the road, and get Kentucky and Tennessee each once, at home. Then their home and homes are against Auburn — a team under going a coaching change — LSU — a team who might be ready to fire their coach if they miss the NCAA tournament again this season — and Missouri, who well should be pretty good.
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The home slate is manageable, the road slate isn’t overwhelming. As much as any SEC schedule can look, this is a good one.
THE RULING
If there are objections to this high of a ranking for Arkansas, I suggest we go back to the schedule. Kentucky has a deeper roster, higher projections in the analytics, but they have 7 games in the SEC projected by KenPom.com to finish within a single possession, and home and homes against two of the top three teams, and another set against Vanderbilt who is projected 24th. Arkansas doesn’t face the same level of degree of difficulty in their schedule.
That much may be needed because we’ve seen John Calipari teams swoon through segments of the season now for multiple season. Two years ago they went 6-6 from mid-January through mid February. Three years ago the Kentucky Wildcats dropped four of seven, and then later three of five. In those two stretches their wins were over teams teams with an average KenPom rating of 199.2. With losses to 221st rated South Carolina and 154th rated Georgia.
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Last season is last season, but recent history and trends give plenty of reason to doubt whether Calipari has still got it. Regardless of whether you think that’s true, there’s always a reason to be a beliver in talent and this Arkansas roster has a healthy amount of talent.
Adding a dynamic playmaker at point guard like Darius Acuff allows Cal to move DJ Wagner off the ball more often. Something that caused the offense to stick last year was Wagner’s inability to generate clean looks for his teammates, or covert drives at the rim. Acuff doesn’t have those same issues. He’s still a young point guard, so he’ll be prone to taking bad shots or maybe make an error in judgement for a possession or two here and there. But he’s also a very likely lottery pick at this point, and a player like that with the ball in his hands will take you a lot farther.
Adding another youngster like Thomas, who is a shotmaker, will take some pressure off Wagner, plus players like Richmond and Knox, to be offensive drivers. Knox’s play took off last year when he accepted more of a 3&D type role, and Richmond is an explosive athlete but an unpolished offensive player. He’s best suited in the open floor attacking the rim.
This roster makes a lot more sense than last year’s roster did. There are already more defined roles, and we haven’t even mentioned Trevon Brazile who is back for another year. Brazile has been a frustrating talent, and he’s never fully realized his potential, but he’s still a quality four man who can hit some outside shots and effect shots on defense.
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We will learn quickly how good the Razorbacks are this year with an early road test at Michigan State, and it’s possible the Hogs run into a bump or two along the way. But this again looks like a team who’ll be ready to make a run in March.
My Results: Arkansas Razorbacks — 2nd in conference, 13-5
About the preview: a number of respected basketball bloggers were asked to submit one pick for the entire league schedule game by game. The game by game option allows us to account for the unbalanced schedule when addressing any kind of power rankings. Each set of picks are reflected in “the Masses” picks. Included in “the Masses” are various SEC media members who made picks at my request, as well as additional credit given to the analytics projections.
If you’d like to submit your picks, click here for the Google Form we used. If you want to know your results, send me an email.
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Additionally, instead of relying solely on KenPom.com for the analytics site projections, we’re taking the average of the four main sites (EvanMiya.com, BartTorvik.com, Haslametrics.com, and KenPom.com) to give a closer consensus picture. These are weighted a touch for reliability.
The projections: This is new! In an attempt to be as accurate as we could be we increased the amount of analytics used to make individual projections which influenced how these teams slotted in order. Matt Watkins used an indepth method for projecting the entire SEC transfer list, we then mixed in EvanMiya.com’s BPR projections, and BartTorvik.com’s preseason individual projections to round out the expected production based upon how each coach routinely uses his rotations.
GLOSSARY
* – an asterisk denotes a walk-on player
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GP – Games Played
%min – percentage of total available minutes played, does not account for time missed due to injury
%poss – percentage of team possessions the player is responsible for ending a possession, whether by making a shot, missing a shot not rebounded by the offense or committing a turnover. For returning players this is noted as a percentage of total team possessions. For newcomers it was total possessions when that player was on the floor, better known as Usage Rate.
ORtg – Offensive Rating, similar to a points per possession but averaged out over 100 possessions. So it’s how many points a player would score if they were responsible for 100 possessions.
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BPR – Bayseian Performance Rating, a single player efficiency metric created by Evan Miyakawa to determine both offensive and defensive impact when a player is on the floor.
PPG – Points Per Game, RPG – Rebounds Per Game, APG – Assists Per Game: All traditional statistics used to measure player production.
For newcomer player rankings, we used EvanMiya.com’ s rankings for transfers, and 247sports.com ‘s Composite Rating for Freshmen and Junior College signees.
