Arkansas landed one of the top scorers in all of high school basketball on Friday, when five-star guard Darius Acuff Jr. made the call for the Razorbacks. Acuff chose John Calipari’s program over finalists Kansas and childhood dream school Michigan and provides Arkansas fans with yet another reason to be optimistic about the direction of the program in the post-Eric Musselman era.
Below, Rivals national analyst Rob Cassidy explores what Arkansas is getting Acuff as well as what landing him means for the bigger picture.
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WHAT ARKANSAS IS GETTING
One of the most lethal scorers in the 2025 class, Acuff can take over a game due to the fact that he’s a legitimate threat to score from almost anywhere on the floor. He makes incredibly difficult shots look easy at times and puts enormous pressure on opponents with his ability to take defenders off the bounce.
The drawback to this, however, is that the five-star guard sometimes struggles from an efficiency standpoint and is prone to letting a poor start spiral into poor games as well as less-than-ideal body language.
When things are going well, however, there’s nobody in this class you’d rather have with the ball in his hands. Acuff shines as a shot-creator and has a pull-up game that makes him lethal from the mid-range and the 3-point arc. He absorbs contact incredibly well and is as reliable a finisher through traffic as there is in high school basketball due to his strong upper body and impressive body control. He’s become a better ball-handler last year and sees the floor well from a passing standpoint. He’s at his best when he lets the game come to him and avoids difficult shots.
Defensively, Acuff possesses the athleticism and lateral quickness to frustrate defenders even if his 6-foot-1 frame doesn’t lend itself to elite versatility on that end of the floor.
The Detroit-born standout averaged 23.9 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game in the EYBL this summer and showed some encouraging signs from an efficiency perspective during July’s Peach Jam play-in tournament, as he shot 47 percent from the floor in a small, five-game sample size. .
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WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE RAZORBACKS
For Arkansas fans, Friday’s news feels somehow bigger than the obvious on-court benefits of landing a high-level scorer such as Acuff. Not that there was any massive doubt about the level at which John Calipari would be able to recruit in Fayetteville, but beating out Kansas and in-state Michigan for a five-star drives home the point that the Razorbacks have both the budget and the clout to wade in the deepest parts of the recruiting pool in program’s new era.
Obviously, what happens on the floor will determine how the Calipari is judged, but winning a battle like this certainly provides some semblance of offseason peace of mind.
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