Jaylen Barford Returning for Senior Season with Arkansas Basketball

Jaylen Barford announced Tuesday afternoon that he will return to Arkansas for his senior season with the basketball team. He wrote an essay about his decision for ArkasnasRazorbacks.com (these essays seem to be a new thing the Arkansas communications team is doing).

This was mostly expected but still very good news. Barford had given several indications since the season ended that he seemed to be leaning toward returning, but you never know how these things are going to go.

Barford became a star of the team over the second half of the season last year. He averaged 12.8 points per game throughout the year but over the last 16 games of the year averaged 15.6 points, including five 20-point performances. He also averaged 3.8 rebounds and 2 assists per game.

I think Barford has potential to have a monster senior season. As strong as he was coming along at the end of this year and as most junior college players blossom as seniors, it’s easy to be excited about what he could do on the floor. His biggest weakness is outside shooting. He only made 26.6% of his threes last season, but was excellent at getting to the rim and converting. He made 50.3% of his two-point shots and 75.2% of his free throws.

Now the Razorbacks just await word from Daryl Macon. I don’t expect it will take long to get his decision.