5-star guard Nick Smith Jr. officially signs with Arkansas

Arkansas top basketball recruit Nick Smith Jr. officially signed his National Letter of Intent on Saturday with the Razorbacks.

“I’m blessed to be in this position,” Smith told Kevin McPherson at the event. “I still have a lot of work to do from here on out.”

Smith is the No. 10 overall recruit and five-star rated prospect in the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

North Little Rock 5-star guard Nick Smith signs with Arkansas Saturday night at JJ’s Grill in Fayetteville pic.twitter.com/N8UbhKyTHn

— Dudley E. Dawson (@Dedsports) November 14, 2021

Smith officially signed at JJ’s Grill in Fayetteville, Ark., which is located just a few blocks away from campus.

“The people love me here and I love them back,” Smith said. “They just show a lot of love and thats one of the reasons why I wanted to come out here and sign.”

Nick Smith Jr. is the headliner of Arkansas’ recruiting class

The Razorbacks have the No. 7 recruiting class in the nation with five recruits all ranked in the top 125 of the On3 Consensus. It would make the second straight cycle Arkansas finishes with a top-10 class and only the third time since 2005.

Nick Smith Jr., as both the highest-rated player and the best basketball player from Arkansas, takes the top slot as the headliner of the class. But it won’t be a one-man show on the court next season.

Four-star small forward Jordan Walsh out of Cedar Hill, Texas, is the No. 22 overall recruit in the country. Walsh is an athletic 6-foot-7 wing who plays hard on both sides of the court.

Four-star shooting guard Derrian Ford, four-star small forward Barry Dunning, and three-star small forward Joseph Pinion round out the high school recruits heading to Fayetteville, Ark., next season.

Ford is the only recruit who has not signed an NLI as of Sunday morning. But he is expected to do so later on Sunday.