Arkansas Rivals150 target Jaylin Williams down to two after official visit
And then there were two.
One of the top available centers in the nation is fresh off his official visit at Arkansas and has narrowed his list down to the Razorbacks and the Auburn Tigers. Fort Smith Northside and Woodz Elite center Jaylin Williams cancelled his A&M official visit scheduled for Nov. 15 after a successful one-day official on the Hill with Eric Musselman and his staff.
"My visit was good, I only did a one day visit, I'm kind of sick right now," Williams said. "We talked about how I fit their system, how they like to play things, how they like my game and we went over my EYBL stats, how they could compliment the way I play and fix some things I needed to work on."
Williams is one of the five top in-state prospects all ranked in the Rivals150, dubbed the Feral Five (by me per a Twitter suggestion). Given his 6-foot-9, 210-pound stature and Arkansas's roster needs, Williams is perhaps one of the most important targets Musselman has had since taking the job in Fayetteville in April.
Williams got to spend a good amount of time with the new staff even though he didn't spend the 48-hours on the Hill. The Northside standout was at the Red-White game as well as the Hogs' season-opener against Rice.
"The coaches are a bunch of great guys," Williams said. "You can tell they keep it real with everybody. They try to have a good time and joke around a lot, that's kind of how I am so, there's a bunch of good guys up there. It wasn't too much different from my Auburn visit but they showed me more stats and more stuff in detail about how I would fit."
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Musselman has now hosted more than a handful of 2020 prospects for official visits and he's notorious for going into heavy detail on their games and how they'd fit into his system. For Woodz Elite this summer, Williams averaged 11.6 points per game during the regular AAU season and 58% from deep with 10.4 rebounds per game.
"Coach Muss says he likes to play positionless basketball and during EYBL I hit a good percentage of threes," Williams said. "They said they'd like to play me at the power forward position where I could come down as a trailer and hit the three or stay on the outside for a pick and roll and hit that pop shot. I can also roll to the basketball. Knowing how I like to play they said I would fit perfect with them."
The Razorbacks made a big splash on Saturday by locking down top-50 small forward Moses Moody over Michigan and Virginia but Williams wasn't surprised.
"I knew Moses was going to commit there already," Williams said. "We've been talking in a group chat for a week or two now, Devo started it before me and Chris (Moore) took the Auburn visit. We've been talking, that's all I'm going to say on that matter."
As an Arkansas native, the Razorbacks should have the upperhand over the Auburn Tigers but it will still be a couple more weeks before fans know where Williams will land. Since taking his official visits over the past couple weeks, his timeline has sped up.
"I'm pretty sure every high school athlete they want their family to be able to watch them play, but it's not really a big thing I'm worried about. I'm just trying to make the best decision for me. I'm planning on committing within the next couple weeks. I'll probably release a video."
Arkansas's 2020 class has two 4-star commitments and Musselman still has room to take one mid-season enrollee plus up to as many as two or three more 2020 commits depending on attrition.
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