FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas rolled to its second exhibition win in as many games in the Baha Mar summer league in Nassau on Saturday, beating Carleton University 98-58.
The Ravens fought early, but Arkansas began to pull away and led by 25 at halftime after Jordan Smith Jr. nailed a three to beat the buzzer.
That shot was indicative of the way Smith, the No. 2 overall recruit in the Class of 2026, played on Saturday in his second exhibition game with the Razorbacks.
Smith put together a triple double on the evening, totaling 11 rebounds and 11 assists in addition to his 20 points. He was also very active defensively, totaling four steals in the win.
“I told him before the game, be the best player in the country,” Wilkinson said. “That’s what you are. You do everything on the court. He’s going to come out there and prove it to y’all every single game that he can do everything on the court. “
“He’s just always had that dog mentality,” said Andrews, who played with Smith at various camps while the two were growing up. “He’s always going to get everybody involved like a point guard does… He gets buckets, that’s what he does. I’m very proud of him.”
Associate head coach Chin Coleman served as Arkansas’ head coach on Saturday and was also very complimentary of Smith.
“He has such a winning pedigree,” Coleman said. “Jordan Smith is the kind of kid that, when you have him on your team, when we recruited him, you feel like he comes with 25 wins. We just can’t mess up the other seven.
“He’s such a winner. He can block shots, he can rebound, he can defend the best players. He’s just a winner.”
Head coach John Calipari has a knack for recruiting and developing players very successfully. He’s already done that at Arkansas, sending Darius Acuff and Meleek Thomas to the NBA after just one season.
Smith, who has been projected as a potential top five or even the No. 1 overall pick in the 2027 NBA Draft, appears to be the next great one-and-done Calipari guard, though Arkansas fans probably wouldn’t mind if he decided to stick around for a few years, however unlikely that scenario is.
As good as Smith has proven to be over Arkansas’ first two exhibition games, he’ll be quite the player when March rolls around.
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