John Calipari, Arkansas basketball, NCAA Tournament, CBS Sportsphoto credit: Craven Whitlow

A hamburger from Burger King and a hamburger from Feltner Brothers are, technically, both hamburgers. Meat. Bread. Condiments. The ingredients for a hamburger are simple. The quality of the individual pieces and their distribution, though, combines with cooking style to make all the difference. 

Arkansas basketball won’t be a fast-food ground round this winter. Chef John Calipari is too experienced, his components too superior, for the Razorbacks to end up in March being a meal its fans will regret. The question is whether they’re gourmet or if they’re just something you throw on the grill when half-drunk at the cookout. 

Football may be just around the corner, but with expectations for the Hogs on the football field mild, at best, basketball keeps some of us far more engaged. Calipari even invited the local media to catch a glimpse of his team over the summer, allowing us to view a shortened practice. Just about everyone who was there ultimately left thinking Arkansas’ odds of another Sweet 16 appear relatively strong.

Those chances seemed high last year, too, in August. But it took a whale of a final month for the Razorbacks to start sizzling in earnest. An 0-5 start in Southeastern Conference play created a hole that had even the most die-hard fans questioning whether the Hall of Fame coach still had what it took in the era of the transfer portal and NIL. Of course he did. Of course he still does.

And the door is open in a weaker SEC this year, too. But Arkansas can only take full advantage if Calipari’s instincts, and ability to recruit youth, hold up when practically everyone else is loading up on experience by using the portal to greatly expand their rosters. Cal did make two additions via transfer, but focused far more heavily on retention and youth.

CBS Says Hogs Have High Ceiling, Low Floor

It made sense, then, that Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish, hosts of the “CBS Eye on College Basketball” podcast, called Arkansas a top-three team in the country when it comes to the gap between ceiling and floor. 

By their mutual estimation, the Razorbacks’ ceiling is as a top-10-ish team in the country. The floor, though, could yield another regular season like the last one. Recall, even with Arkansas’ March run, the Hogs still finished just 8-10 in league play. They’ve been below .500 in the SEC in five of the last seven years. They also have four Sweet 16s, including two Elite Eights, in four of the last five seasons. 

Impressive, but the return of the ‘90s has not yet come to fruition. Parrish and Norlander don’t quite see it happening this year, either.

“I’m very confident in saying over the past two years combined, if you took this year’s portal cycle bank account, the amount of money Arkansas can spend, and last year and combined it, Arkansas would rank in the top five, unquestionably, in the sport in how much they were putting out there for players to go and play for them,” Norlander said. “Calipari, theoretically, still had the money to justify bringing in what would be a top-five roster talent-wise. It just hasn’t equated to that.” 

The Returners for Arkansas Basketball

Arkansas returns four of its nine rotation players from last year. DJ Wagner leads that quartet in scoring after finishing fourth with 11.2 points per game. Trevon Brazile, Karter Knox and Billy Richmond are all back, too, after averaging between 5.7 points and 8.3 points as regulars. In the age of portal, this means the Razobacks stand out as being in better shape than most of the rest of the SEC. Arkansas ranks second in the league in percentage of scoring returning (41.2) and first in percentage of minutes returning (47.6).

Conventional wisdom is that so much continuity, relatively speaking, would equate to more predictability. But that’s not the case here. Too many unknowns lurk within and among Arkansas’ roster. 

Let’s first look at the four returners. DJ Wagner was about the only player on the entire roster about whom Calipari, or anyone else, knew what they were getting. Sometimes he’d be a bit below double figures in scoring, but regularly, he’d hover around the 12-point mark. Usually a shot or two below .500 from the floor, game-in, game-out. Never elite. Almost always sound – but didn’t really have a top-notch game until Arkansas’ regular-season finale against Mississippi State when he scored 24 points in a nearly must-win game.

After that, things were often dicey, or, at least, curious.

In this particular department, nobody outdoes Brazile. After his blockbuster first month as a Razorbacks hoopster nearly three years ago, some prognosticators projected him as a potential first-round pick. Two knee injuries and some off-court drama later, Brazile entered the transfer portal, exited it, fumbled around in the rotation and, ultimately, became Arkansas’ best player in the final couple weeks. If reports of that continuing into the offseason are true, the Hogs could reach that ceiling. But if he goes backwards again – because of injuries or not – then, yep, variance.

And then there’s the youth. In 2024-25, Karter Knox grew into a solid player, if not a star, over his final two months of his freshman season. He put together seven double-figure scoring games in his final nine during the regular season and then added two more in the NCAA Tournament. Before that stretch, he had hit double-digits just twice against SEC opponents. Probably not a coincidence that both times he did so, Arkansas won.

Richmond doesn’t have quite the same resume in part because he didn’t get quite as much run, averaging almost seven fewer minutes a game than Knox. But a 15-point outburst in the SEC Tournament against Ole Miss and a 16-point game against St. John’s in the NCAA Tournament showcased his potential. On the other hand, from Dec. 3 to Feb. 5, a span of 15 games, Richmond scored more than four points a total of three times. Inconsistency – the hallmark of youth. 

The New Guys for Arkansas Basketball

Speaking of, five-star freshmen guards Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas will be in the rotation unless injuries crop up. But they are, in fact, freshmen. Acuff is a potential top-10 NBA pick and Thomas a potential first-rounder, but nothing is guaranteed in a person’s first year away from home. The crystal ball’s even further muddied when considering how relatively poorly Fland and Wagner meshed last season alongside fellow backcourt mate Johnell Davis. If this year’s trio of primary guards fares better, Arkansas will be in better shape.

If they’re similar to last year’s, it could be a long Christmastime. 

Finally, Arkansas’ two new bigs both have the experience to provide intimidation on the interior. 

Malique Ewin averaged more than 14 points and 7 rebounds last year, numbers that, if he replicates, could set him up for a massive season. But he put up those numbers at Florida State, a team that finished in the exact middle of the 18-team Atlantic Coast Conference. The ACC isn’t what it used to be, either.

Then, there is new forward Nick Pringle, who previously transferred from Wofford to Alabama to South Carolina. Pringle, actually, may be the most consistent as he was good for about 9 points and 6 rebounds a night against league foes. If he can do that again in his final year of college hoops, it’ll help. If nothing else, he’s predictable, a quality this year’s team could use.

The Numbers

The season will depend on the degree to which the above players shore up Arkansas’ rebounding and 3-point shooting. In five of Arkansas’ final six losses of the year, opponents hammered the Razorbacks on the glass. Auburn and Texas Tech outrebounded Arkansas by double digits. Shooting the ball, in five of those six losses, the Hogs failed to eclipse the 35% mark from 3-point range, as well. They may not have been the reasons Arkansas lost each game, but they were the team’s most significant weakness.

  • Loss to Bama (4): outrebounded by 3, 35% 3s
  • Loss to A&M (8): outrebounded by 3, 33% 3s
  • Loss to Auburn (7): outrebounded by 13, 16% 3s
  • Loss to SCAR (19): outrebounded by 3, 14% 3s
  • Loss to OM (3): won rebounding by 6, 32% 3s
  • Loss to Tech (2): outrebounded by 12, 40% 3s

Even with the talent, Norlander and Parrish, rightfully, don’t see this new Arkansas basketball team as playing with a winning hand yet. It just isn’t a Hogs roster that jumps off the page as a classic Calipari roster.

“We went about a decade-plus where you could reasonably assume, without knowing anything, that guy is going to have one of the most talented rosters in the country, if not the most talented and it’s just not true right now,” Parrish said.

What that means for the burger’s taste is to be determined. A dash here, a sprinkle there and maybe a delectable meal is on the table. Calipari thinks he has the ingredients, but for now, the cooking remains.

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Five minutes worth of ads, but Norlander and Parrish are almost always a good listen:

YouTube video

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