Arkansas Basketball: Hogs ink 5-star guard Layden Blocker

While Arkansas football floundered on the field against LSU, Arkansas basketball got a signed National Letter of Intent from five-star point guard Layden Blocker. He will join the Razorbacks as a member of the 2023 recruiting class.

Per a release from the University of Arkansas, head coach Eric Musselman said that Blocker, a Little Rock native currently playing high school basketball for Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas, is a “tenacious defender and versatile floor general. He comes from a well-coached program and has experience competing against some of the best young players in the country.”

While Blocker is a four-star prospect according to ESPN, 247sports, and Rivals, 247sports composite ranks him as a five-star player. What doesn’t waiver is that the 6’2″ guard is a Top-30 player across the board overall and a Top-10 point guard.

2023 Top-10 point guard Blocker signed his National Letter of Intent with Arkansas basketball this weekend.

Blocker is currently the only commitment and signing in that class for Arkansas basketball and Musselman, according to Hawg Sports. However, Musselman and his staff are still waiting to hear the status of big men Baye Fall and Assane Diop. Fall and Diop are cousins from Colorado who have previously visited campus.

Blocker represents another in-state kid who has decided to play basketball on The Hill for Musselman’s Razorbacks. He joins the likes of Devo Davis, Moses Moody, Nick Smith Jr, and Jaylin Williams as highly-rated in-state prospects who decided to stay home for college.

Also, like Moody and Smith, he will enter the program as a player with a professional pedigree. NBA Draft Net has him projected in the back half of the 2024 NBA Draft’s first round. (It is worth noting that Fall is projected to go fourth in that same draft.)

Arkansas had been heavily recruiting five-star power forward Ronald Holland in that 2023 class as well, but Holland just signed his NLI with Chris Beard and the Texas Longhorns.