Arkansas has great history with JUCO transfers
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Eric Musselman has developed a reputation for landing transfers during his career as a collegiate head coach, but almost all of them have joined his teams straight from other Division I programs.
In five seasons at Nevada and Arkansas, the former NBA coach has rarely targeted transfers from the JUCO ranks. He broke from that norm Wednesday morning when Akol Mawein from Navarro C.C. committed to the Razorbacks.
Assuming he ultimately signs with Arkansas, he’ll become just the fourth JUCO player Musselman has signed during his career. The previous three never appeared in a game for Nevada, so that is another trend the Razorbacks hope to break with Mawein.
Early in his tenure with the Wolf Pack, Musselman signed Sam Williams, a Nevada native out of Mt. San Jacinto C.C. He was a mid-year enrollee and redshirted during the spring of 2016, but ultimately left the team that summer and ended up at a Division II school.
He also inked Shawntrez Davis out of South Plains College and Eric Parrish out of Bossier Parish in the 2017 and 2019 classes, respectively.
Davis, a former ESPN four-star recruit, committed to Texas Tech out of high school before taking the JUCO route because of grades. That ultimately kept him from ever enrolling at Nevada, too, and he ended up having a nice two-year career at Bethune-Cookman.
Parrish began his career at Akron before heading to the JUCO ranks. He signed during the early period, requested a release when Musselman took the Arkansas job and eventually stuck with the Wolf Pack. However, he left the team before ever playing a minute and landed at UTSA.
It’s also worth noting that Nevada landed a commitment from Arlando Cook, but his pledge lasted just a month before he flipped to the Razorbacks.
Considering his connection to new assistant David Patrick, who actually got him to commit to three different schools - LSU, TCU and UC-Riverside - before coming to Arkansas, the Razorbacks are hopeful Mawein’s tenure will end up more similar to their recent JUCO players rather than Musselman’s.
Just last year in Musselman’s first season at Arkansas, former Connors State C.C. transfer Mason Jones led the conference in scoring and earned SEC co-Player of the Year and honorable mention All-America honors from the AP.
He was just the eighth player in school history to reach 1,000 career points in his first two years with the program. Interestingly, the two players to accomplish the feat before Jones were also junior college products: Jaylen Barford from Motlow State C.C. and Daryl Macon from Holmes C.C.
Both of them were members of the same class that included Cook, who had much less success with the Razorbacks as his counterparts. While Barford and Macon each averaged more than 15 points per game in their Arkansas careers, Cook averaged just 2.4 points.
The only other JUCO players to signed with the Razorbacks over the past decade are Coty Clarke (Lawson State C.C., Class of 2012) and Jabril Durham (Seminole State C.C., Class of 2014). They had varying levels of success.
Clarke is one of only eight Arkansas players since 1992-93 who has averaged at least 9 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal per game in a season, doing so his senior year. The others are Jones, Jimmy Whitt Jr., Courtney Fortson, Patrick Beverley, Ronnie Brewer, Joe Johnson and Corliss Williamson.
Durham averaged 6.4 assists per game as a senior, which ranks second in UA history behind only Kareem Reid’s 6.6 in 1995-96. Including his first year at Arkansas, he had an impressive 3.05-to-1 career assist-to-turnover ratio, which is second only to Lee Mayberry’s 3.14 in school history.
Going back further into Arkansas’ history, the program has had tremendous success with JUCO transfers.
The 1994 national championship team prominently featured four players - Corey Beck, Alex Dillard, Dwight Stewart and Roger Crawford - from the junior college ranks.
Ron Brewer, a member of The Triplets who led the Razorbacks to the 1978 Final Four, began his career at Westark J.C. in Fort Smith, as did later stars Darrell Walker and Sonny Weems.
Other great Arkansas players who played in junior college before arriving in Fayetteville include Martin Terry (Hutchinson C.C.), Alvin Robertson (Crowder J.C.), Lenzie Howell (San Jacinto J.C.), Isaiah Morris (San Jacinto J.C.) and Jannero Pargo (Neosho County C.C.).