Photo Credit: Arkansas Athletics
Every time I read preseason college basketball rankings, I’m reminded of those heist movies where the obvious suspects get all the attention while the real masterminds operate in plain sight, quietly assembling the perfect crew for the job nobody sees coming.
CBS Sports’ Isaac Trotter unveiled his offseason crown jewel a few weeks ago, outlining the top five players in college basketball at 10 different positional archetypes. Yet in his exhaustive analysis of college basketball’s elite, he managed to overlook three Arkansas starlets who could make major waves this season. The only Razorback even mentioned in the initial projections was Darius Acuff, Jr., who Trotter suggests as a dark horse candidate to break into the top five as a scorer/creator.
To his credit, he did take to social media and post an expanded top-15 for each archetype. Alongside Acuff, DJ Wagner made the “combo guard” category and Karter Knox slotted under the “true wing” umbrella.
Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari has assembled something special in Fayetteville, but you wouldn’t know it from reading these rankings. It’s time to shine a light on this oversight. While this piece could present arguments for everyone mentioned above, we’ll narrow our focus to the three guys – outside of Acuff – most likely to crack the top five at their respective positions.
Ranking college basketball’s best players, by positional archetypes. One of my favorite projects.
– 2025-26 impact only. Not tilted toward NBA upside.
– Numerous guys could fit in a few buckets.
– Left off the brilliant Jayden Quaintance while he heals up from an ACL. pic.twitter.com/OnWcHKJGfw
— Isaac Trotter (@Isaac__Trotter) August 4, 2025
Karter Knox: The Long Con on the Wing
CBS constructed its true wing rankings like a 1987 museum security system – impressive on the surface, but full of exploitable blind spots. They’ve got AJ Dybantsa, Otega Oweh, Josh Dix, Chad Baker-Mazara and Andrej Stojakovic holding down their top five, while Knox imperceptibly lurks in the shadows.
Knox’s late-season emergence wasn’t just impressive, it was the basketball equivalent of watching someone crack a supposedly impenetrable safe with nothing but a stethoscope. When Arkansas needed someone to step up during crunch time, Knox didn’t just deliver, he rewrote the entire playbook.
The 6-foot-6 wing shot 39% from three over the final 15 games of the season, surviving and thriving in the pressure cooker of SEC play and March Madness.
If that weren’t enough, two of the five players ranked ahead of Knox (Baker-Mazara and Stojakovic) have transferred to new programs, which comes with a learning curve that Knox won’t have. Furthermore, he has a higher ceiling than everyone on the list, save for Dybantsa, a BYU freshman widely regarded as the top prospect in next year’s NBA Draft.
He just needs to shoot more, marrying that star-level efficiency with bigger volume. So far during fall camp, Calipari has kept urging him to do just that.
Meleek Thomas: The Five-Star Scorer They Forgot to Case
The scorer/creator position might be where Trotter committed his most egregious oversight. He anointed Darryn Peterson, PJ Haggerty, Tahaad Pettiford, Josh Hubbard and Arkansas expat Boogie Fland as his chosen five. While Acuff at least made the top 15, Trotter seems to have forgotten that another extraordinarily talented freshman clad in cardinal red exists on this planet: Meleek Thomas.
Thomas’ credentials are mighty impressive for a true freshman – consensus five-star recruit, McDonald’s All-American, averaged 31.9 points, 8.9 rebounds, and 4.3 assists while shooting 38.1% from three in Overtime Elite play. Pardon the pun, but those are elite numbers.
The most baffling part of Thomas’ omission is that he represents everything modern basketball claims to value: elite scoring ability, positional versatility and the kind of clutch gene that can’t be taught in summer camps. There are to things potentially holding Thomas back: 1) the logjam at guard for Arkansas and 2) a relative lack of strength that could get him in trouble on the boards and on defense.
If Thomas gets out-muscled by someone his own age below, he could get into some real trouble against guys three or four years older:
Love this sequence from @kohl_rosario
In OTE Finals, his team up by 4 late in game
You see Meleek Thomas getting physical w/ him, putting his hands all over Rosario b/c he knows how good of an offensive rebounder he is
Rosario STILL able to get the o-rebound
Then hits the 3 pic.twitter.com/haD8HKXAXu
— On Ball Creator (@onballcreator) September 9, 2025
How Calipari and opposing coaches choose who guards Thomas, and visa versa, is an underrated aspect of Arkansas’ future success.
Trevon Brazile: The Off-Ball Four Under Deep Cover
The off-ball 4 position is where CBS really showed its hand. Trotter’s got Alex Karaban, Nate Ament, Eric Dailey Jr., Coen Carr, and Caleb Wilson as his top five.
A consistently healthy and engaged Trevon Brazile isn’t just a candidate for this list, he’s the kind of player who makes you wonder if the entire ranking system has been compromised from the inside. According to CBB Analytics, Brazile was in the 85th percentile or higher in all of the following categories last season:
Effective Field Goal %
Hakeem % (The sum of a player’s block and steal percentages)
Defensive rebounds per 40 min.
Blocks per 40 min.
True shooting %
Second Chance Points per 40 min.
Field Goal %
2-point %
There is no other player on the list that can boast that kind of statistical efficiency. It’s safe to say everyone is downplaying Brazile’s impact on last season’s Sweet 16 run.
But Brazile’s true value goes beyond the numbers. He can guard multiple positions, run the floor with gazelle-like grace, and make the kind of winning plays that don’t show up in box scores but somehow always coincide with victories. The key here, and for Coach Calipari this season, is that he doesn’t require the ball in his hands to impact the game.
Again, the injury/mental engagement concern is legitimate, but using that as grounds for exclusion feels like selling short on Brazile. The skills are still there, and he’s got stability he’s never had before heading into his senior season.
The Payoff: What This Means for Arkansas
The beautiful irony in all this overlooking is that it provides Arkansas with the perfect cover for what could be one of the season’s most audacious heists. When everyone’s watching the obvious blue-blooded suspects, Calipari can operate with the kind of freedom from pressure that leads to winning.
Sometimes the best capers happen in broad daylight. Arkansas basketball in 2025-26 feels like one of those operations: methodical, underestimated and ready to make off with nets and trophies while the supposed experts are still figuring out what happened.
Don’t say nobody warned you.
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