{"id":640414,"date":"2026-03-05T06:27:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T06:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/640414\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T06:27:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T06:27:24","slug":"texas-coach-sean-miller-says-arkansas-darius-acuff-jr-should-be-top-pick-in-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/640414\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas coach Sean Miller says Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr. should be top pick in NBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

FAYETTEVILLE \u2014 A couple weeks ago, John Calipari made a case during a postgame press conference that Arkansas basketball<\/a> freshman Darius Acuff Jr. should be a candidate to be the National Player of the Year.<\/p>\n

After his team suffered a 20-point loss to the Hogs on Wednesday, March 4, Texas coach Sean Miller took the praise one step further.<\/p>\n

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The No. 20 Razorbacks<\/a> (22-8, 12-5 SEC) cruised to a 105-85 win over the Longhorns<\/a> (18-12, 9-8) as Acuff scored 28 points and dished out 13 assists. Miller said the point guard should be considered for the No. 1 pick in June’s NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

“He’s a generational player,” Miller said of Acuff. “He’s really, really good, and this, this No. 1 pick thing, like, I don’t know why people aren’t talking about him more. I can’t imagine anybody better. We felt that tonight.”<\/p>\n

Acuff went 8 of 15 from the floor, made four 3-pointers and knocked down 8 of 10 free-throw attempts. He organized a blistering Arkansas<\/a> pace and Texas couldn’t keep up.<\/p>\n

On the season, Acuff is averaging 22.2 points and 6.4 assists. He’s on track to be the first person since Pete Maravich to lead the SEC in both categories.<\/p>\n

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In the latest NBA mock draft from The Athletic, Acuff was projected to be the No. 7 pick. NBA scouts are in a consensus that the 6-foot-3 guard from Detroit isn’t in the same tier as prospects like BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, Duke’s Cameron Boozer or Kansas’ Darryn Peterson.<\/p>\n

Miller disagrees with those assessments.<\/p>\n

“I just have never been on a court where one player at that position is any better than he is,” Miller said. “You know, greatness is how I would describe his game. And seems like an amazing young man.”<\/p>\n

Jackson Fuller covers Arkansas<\/a> football, basketball and baseball for the Southwest Times Record, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at jfuller@usatodayco.com\u00a0or follow him @jacksonfuller16<\/a>\u00a0on X, formerly known as Twitter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Texas’ Sean Miller says Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr. should be No. 1 draft pick<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FAYETTEVILLE \u2014 A couple weeks ago, John Calipari made a case during a postgame press conference that Arkansas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[593,7,41665,599,6,12,70232,32582],"class_list":["post-640414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-arkansas","tag-basketball","tag-darius-acuff-jr","tag-john-calipari","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-postgame-press-conference","tag-sean-miller"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116175152465633938","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}