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To get the inside scoop on new Arkansas hoops commit Joseph Pinion, Jackson Collier caught up with Morrilton head coach Keith Zackery...

“He came to me and Coach Adams as a 7th grader and said, ‘I want to be a high major basketball player,’ and for about seven days we gave him everything we had,” said Morrilton High School Coach Keith Zackery. “At the end we looked at each other and said, ‘Okay, he’s the best player in junior high, he can’t play 7th grade basketball.’

“We told him right then, ‘If you want it, you got the stuff to go get it.’”

Coach Zackery knew he had something special when a twelve-year-old Joseph Pinion walked into his gym.

“He moved here from Atkins in the 7th grade and we told his parents we’d have to play him on the 9th grade team,” said Zackery. “He was the best player in school.”

Coach Zackery described Pinion as humble, a little bit shy, and reserved. Even with his dreams of being a high major basketball player, Pinion might not have seen that potential in himself so young.

“[His parents] were so against it, they didn’t see it. But me and Coach Adams, we saw it instantly. He didn’t see it, either, I don’t think.”

At 6-foot-6, Pinion has the frame for a high-major wing and is trying to add some weight and athleticism.