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Arkansas will be well-represented at the 2023 NBA Draft.
According to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony, both Anthony Black and Nick Smith Jr. have been invited to the green room at Barclays Center in Brooklyn for draft night. The invites aren’t surprising, as both Black and Smith are expected to be first-round draft picks in next week’s draft.
Black sits inside ESPN’s top 10 on its overall big board (specifically No. 8). Smith ranks No. 14 on ESPN’s big board.
Arkansas is hoping to have multiple top-15 draft picks in the same year for the first time in modern draft history. It has also been 30 years since the Razorbacks had multiple players selected in the first round of the same draft. Should he go No. 8 overall, Black would tie Todd Day as the highest-drafted Arkansas player since the NBA Draft moved to 2 rounds in 1989.
The Arkansas duo will be joined in Brooklyn by Alabama’s Brandon Miller and Kentucky’s Cason Wallace. The full list of green room invites can be seen below:
A 2nd batch of nine NBA Draft green room invites was sent out today, multiple sources told ESPN:
Bilal Coulibaly
Cason Wallace
Nick Smith
Dereck Lively
Kobe Bufkin
Jalen Hood-Schifino
Jett Howard
Jordan Hawkins
Keyonte GeorgeAll top-19 of ESPN's top-100 were invited thus far. https://t.co/YF5Ze2cfms pic.twitter.com/YBb8Awb12Z
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) June 13, 2023
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
