John Calipari gives thoughts on signees Andrews, Toure
The Arkansas basketball team added two new players into their 2026 signing class last week with five-star JJ Andrews and four-star Abdou Toure signing on the dotted line to become Razorbacks.
Andrews is an in-state prospect out of Little Rock Christian Academy, while Toure comes out of Connecticut. Both are the No. 1 player in their respective states. Andrews chose the Hogs over Missouri and LSU while Providence and UConn were the schools Arkansas beat out for Toure’s services.
But at the end of the day, Arkansas was where they wanted to be, according to head coach John Calipari, who was asked about his new signees on Friday.
“I absolutely like to have young people that absolutely wanted to be here, that are that talented,” Calipari said. “They’re both five star players. Don’t kid yourself, they’re both five star players.”
Andrews comes to Arkansas as a legacy, as his father Shawn was an All-American offensive lineman for the Razorbacks.
“One is a beast, but can play,” Calipari said of Andrews. “But you know his dad was, you know, his dad was here, and you know, who’s a great NFL player. I mean, mom was a heck of a basketball player, but he wanted to be here, and he wanted to play for me and us.”
Toure doesn’t have any noticeable bloodlines to the Arkansas program, but he does remind the Head Hog of an in-state player that he stole back when he was at Kentucky.
“There were teams in New England that wanted him, but he wanted to be here,” Calipari said of Toure. “That’s who you want to coach. He is different because he has a twitch. The people in Arkansas will know when I say this, Malik Monk-ish. Now I coached Malik. Where was he from? Bentonville.
“He has that kind of twitch, and Malik never saw a shot that he didn’t think was a good shot, because he’d jump over you and get it off. If I got it off, it was a good shot. Dude. He had two people hanging, ‘Coach, I got it off’. This guy is kind of the same.”
With Andrews and Toure officially in the fold, Arkansas has the No. 2 class in the country according to the Rivals Industry Rankings, behind the Duke Blue Devils. But Calipari isn’t necessarily done with his class.
“My guess is we’ll sign one more, maybe two, see what’s going on,” Calipari said. “Who would come back, see if we need to, I’d rather not do transfers if we don’t have to, but those two, we should all be appreciative. I know I am, that they’re coming here.”
Subscribe to HawgBeat now for just $1 for your first week that also includes complete access to On3 and Rivals national content, plus a year’s subscription to The Athletic. Visit our homepage for more in-depth Razorback coverage and tap into the Trough premium message board for daily intel and discussion.
