On Saturday, Arkansas vs Mississippi State will put a spotlight on Arkansas as a late-starting program for a couple reasons.
For one, no SEC bubble team started conference play more slowly this season than the Razorbacks, who stumbled out of the gates at 1-6 before flipping the script in Lexington to go 7-4 since then.
While Arkansas already has a good shot at making March Madness, beating the Bulldogs at home should all but punch that ticket assuming a bid-stealers apocalypse doesn’t go down in other conferences.
Nate Ament at Arkansas vs Mississippi State
In the sea of faces of what promises to be a raucous crowd will be that of Nate Ament, a sharp-shooting 6’9” high school senior whom 247Sports ranks as the nation’s No. 4 player in the class of 2025.
Ament, who has cut his list down to Duke, Kentucky, Louisville, Arkansas and Tennessee, has been taking his sweet time visiting various colleges. It has surprised some recruiting analysts that he decided to visit Arkansas for a weekend at all, considering the relatively late start the Hogs got in the process.
The Duke basketball program, which Arkansas will face on Thanksgiving in Chicago, got things rolling with an offer in 2023 to the Manassas, Virginia native. In 2024, his recruiting blew up on a national level with offers pouring in from all corners.
Ament told 247Sports that the Arkansas basketball staff “started a little bit later than some of the other schools,” but in a May 2024 interview with Pig Trail Nation’s Kevin McPherson he said that John Calipari and current UA assistants had been recruiting him before Calipari came to Fayetteville.
“I’m big into Arkansas, for sure, I’m big into Coach Cal,” he said. “Their staff texted me when they were at Kentucky. I love the way he runs his offense, his defense, the way he runs his program.”
Since at least September, Calipari and his staff have been putting on a nearly full-court press for Ament’s services. The head Arkansas basketball coach has traveled to Warrenton, Virginia multiple times to meet him in person and two weeks ago brought along assistants Chin Coleman and Kenny Payne to see Ament lead the Highland School to a conference title doing stuff like this:
Even though Duke and Louisville are considered the frontrunners in Ament’s recruitment, according to 247Sports recruiting reporter Eric Bossi, Calipari clearly believes Arkansas has a legit chance. The 66-year-old Naismith Memorial Hall of Famer is far too experienced to waste his time – as well as that of his assistants – on an ultra-talented recruit he feels has already made up his mind.
As a likely one-and-done, Ament needs to land at a spot with plenty of playing time available. Duke basketball will already have an opening on the wing with the departure of its star freshman Cooper Flagg to the NBA, but Arkansas’ situation is a bit trickier at that position.
The Hogs’ Karter Knox could be a darkhorse preseason All-SEC pick entering 2025-26 considering the trajectory of his improvement in recent weeks, but it’s unclear if star forward Adou Thiero would return after he recovers from his injury. It’s possible he’ll jump into the 2025 NBA Draft, where he’s projected as a second-round pick, since he’s already spent three seasons in college and showed a lot of improvement this year.
Louisville, Duke Basketball Far Ahead of Hogs
Money, naturally, also weighs heavily into the decision-making of most modern recruits.
Nate Ament has made zero bones about how important it is to him by jumping in with two feet in partnership with Fanstake, an NIL crowdfunding site. The basic idea is simple: different fanbases can show how much they want a specific recruit (across different sports) by pledging money.
In Ament’s case, “he will get 90% of what is put up in his name at the school of his choice, with 3% going to his [future] teammates there and 7% being kept by Fanstake,” according to Sportico’s Jacob Feldman.
The fact that future teammates can get some of the cut is a twist beyond simple Venmo-ing. That, for instance, would incentivize the same Razorbacks hosting Ament this weekend to also spread the word about his Fanstake account.
As far as who is ponying up the funds so far, Arkansas fans are getting embarrassed by their counterparts at Duke, Louisville and Kentucky:
Then again, Razorback fans have been getting hit up an awful lot these days. On the football front, they are getting asked not only for donations per usual but also NIL contributions just to stay competitive in the SEC.
Even in basketball, the average fan is getting asked to shoulder more of the burden than ever. As BoAS’ Andrew Hutchinson reported, Arkansas’ ticket prices for a family of four in 2025-26 will be by far the most expensive out of 16 SEC programs.
So perhaps Arkansas fans, at this point, aren’t quite showing the love of fans in wealthier states that lack football programs asking for as much money.
But don’t expect these numbers to matter too much to Ament this weekend. “It’s exciting to see how fans can get involved in helping me find the right fit,” he said about working with Fanstake, and why shouldn’t he be?
The tens of thousands of dollars that a startup like this can generate for a recruit are a few drops in the bucket compared to the millions that boosters like John Tyson can bring to the table.