Hutch's Take, Highlights: 5-star signee Smith has 'quiet' 17 in blowout win

FORT SMITH — North Little Rock was on upset alert for all of one quarter Tuesday night before asserting itself in a blowout win at Fort Smith Northside.

Neither of the Charging Wildcats’ 5-star prospects - Arkansas signee Nick Smith Jr. and Oregon signee Kel’el Ware - played well as the Grizzlies raced out to a 10-point lead. In what felt like the blink of an eye, though, they roared back.

Smith, Ware and company quieted a rowdy student section by dominating the second quarter, outscoring Northside 24-6 en route to an easy 77-45 win. North Little Rock, ranked No. 8 nationally by MaxPreps, improved to 21-3 overall and 10-0 in Class 6A-Central play.

“Every time we go (on the road), it’s going to be a good crowd and the student section is going to be turnt,” Smith told HawgBeat. “Their team is going to be even more pumped to play us. We just have to stay composed and keep competing and that’s what we did.”

It was a relatively quiet game for Smith, who was recently tabbed the No. 4 overall player in the 2022 class by Rivals. The Arkansas signee finished with 17 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 block in just under 25 minutes, according to HawgBeat’s unofficial stats.

Those were well under his season averages, but he played particularly well in the third quarter when North Little Rock put the game away. He scored nine of his points during that 8-minute stretch, doing most of his damage from the free throw line.