Brazile, Thiero offer versatility as valuable wildcards on John Calipari’s first roster at Arkansas

By Kevin McPherson

LITTLE ROCK — It seems obvious 1-through-9 that new Arkansas head coach John Calipari balanced arguably the best recruiting class in the nation, but as good as the top-two rotation looks there are a couple of players who might just prove to be a Hoop Hogs wild card duo: juniors Trevon Brazile and Adou Thiero.

Neither Brazile (6-10, 220, 7-4 wingspan, 4/5-combo forward/center, Arkansas’ lone returnee) nor Thiero (6-8, 220, 3/4-combo forward, Kentucky transfer) were perceived in the offseason to be locks to join Calipari’s roster for the upcoming 2024-25 campaign, but as it turns out both have the potential to offer the most versatility to a frontline that only goes four deep on a team that has a clear top nine rotation.

Both players have two seasons of remaining playing eligibility, but neither is a guarantee to return after ’24-25 if things go well as both have had their share of mock NBA Draft projections during their careers. Both have plus or elite measurabales relative to their projected positions, and both are among Hogville’s projected initial starting five along with senior transfer guard Nellie Davis, senior transfer center Jonas Aidoo, and sophomore transfer guard DJ Wagner.

Brazile and Thiero have yet to peak and fully deliver on all of their potential and promise, still their collective 1-2 wildcard punch adds to the intrigue of having two talents who can play more than one position allowing Calipari to have more lineup, matchup, and strategic options.

Brazile – a preseason first team All SEC selection in ’23-24 who also garnered some preseason 2024 NBA mock draft lottery projections — battled through injuries (most notably a season-ending knee injury that required surgery nine games into the ’22-23 campaign) in his two seasons at Arkansas after transferring from league foe Missouri following his freshman season in ’21-22.

In 35 games spanning his two partial seasons as a Razorback, Brazile was often limited but averaged 9.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks while shooting 48.5% from the field, including 36.1% from 3, and 68.9% from the free throw line.

Following last season, he entered both the transfer portal and the NBA Draft pool which included some impressive moments during the NBA Draft combine in May, but he withdrew from the draft on May 28 and six days later he withdrew from the portal and committed to return to Arkansas for a third season for a chance to play for Calipari. In doing do, he became the ninth and final piece to Calipari’s group of top-rotation players.

“After the season,  I wanted to go (test out the NBA draft),” Brazile said. “I kept in contact with coach Cal and the staff. What they do is … you already know what they do (help develop players for the NBA Draft). So coming back, it was a no-brainer for me.”

Brazile has recorded six double-doubles at Arkansas — that equates to better than one double-double every six outings — and his best games have come in the team’s biggest and/or most tightly contest wins: he had 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 steals in the Hogs’ 78-74 overtime win over 17th-ranked (and eventual NCAA Tournament national runner-up) San Diego State in the Maui Invitational third-place game in ’22-23; he had 14 points, 17 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals in the Hogs’ 77-74 double-overtime win over Stanford in the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis in ’23-24; he had 19 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 steals in an 80-75 win over No. 7 Duke in the first ACC/SEC Challenge in ’23-24; and he had 13 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2 steals, and 1 assist in the Hogs’ 90-85 overtime win over Vanderbilt in the first round of the SEC Tournament in ’23-24.

“Trevon is better than I thought he was,” Calipari said during a sort of State of the Hoop Hogs address on Monday at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville. “So I’ll just, a story: He’s in there laying on his back and I said, you’re better than I thought you were. He looks at me and says ‘I told you’. But that’s the confidence that I want him to feel, but he’s got to get into wars and be comfortable in those situations.”

When Calipari was first introduced as the new Head Hog at BWA on April 10, there was no thought Brazile might be in play for a return.

“When I went in that room — that locker room — and there was no one in there, my thought was, ‘Well maybe, he didn’t want to be here,'” Calipari said. “And I wasn’t going to beg anybody. I don’t even beg recruits I’m recruiting. They’ve got to want this as bad as I want them. They’ve got to want me and our staff, and with a player that’s been here, if they don’t want to be here, would you want them here? No. So then I find out, ‘Coach, I think he wants to be here.’ Really? Well, get him on the phone with me because I knew he was good.

“And then we talked, talked to his dad, sat down and that’s what he wanted to do. I said, ‘Well, let’s go do this.’ I told him my plan for him, what we try to do … I’m excited for him because I talked to Cuonzo Martin (former Mizzou head coach who brought Brazile into the SEC as a true freshman in ’21-22) about him, who loves him by the way. My hope is everybody comes out and says, ‘That’s what I knew he could be.’ Then we’ve done our job as coaches. So you have an idea of the mindset for all these kids, he’s never been better. I knew he could be that good. Those are the things I want to hear.”

For Brazile, the keys to success will be to stay healthy, to play with more determination and consistency at both ends of the court, to play with more force and physicality dealing with contact on the interior, and maybe most importantly to offer a skilled complement as the starting four-spot forward (although he’s among the frontliners being cautioned not to shoot too often from beyond the three-point arc) while having enough versatility to provide depth and a change of pace at the center spot that will be anchored by Aidoo (6-11) and sophomore transfer Zvonimir Ivisic (7-2).

“He (Calipari) would just rather see me take a mid-range shot because I’m going to make that more than I make a three, probably,” Brazile said. “He just wants to see me make faster decisions with the ball in my hands. That’s what I’ve worked on a lot this summer.”

He’s off to a good start with those endeavors as evidenced by his play prompting Calipari to note Brazile was better than he initially thought, and Brazile remembered that exchange precisely as Calipari described it.

“About halfway through the summer, he (Calipari) came up to me and said, ‘Man, you’re better than I thought you were,'” Brazile recalled. “I just told him, ‘I told you so.'”

Thiero was Calipari’s seventh Arkansas commitment when he pledged to the Razorbacks on May 6 (about a week after visiting Arkansas), but he actually entered the transfer portal prior to Calipari coming into focus as the next Arkansas coach in early April. Clearly, there was not an initial, predetermined clear path for Thiero to stick with Calipari, whether at Kentucky or elsewhere.

“There were a lot of conversations behind the scenes,” Thiero said of his offseason interactions with Calipari. “I know I talked to him  probably three, four times in three different states in a week’s span. From anybody looking at that, that kind of makes a difference in everything.”

A physical and athletic specimen, Thiero has grown between three to four inches since he landed at Kentucky as a freshman in ’22-23, and his built-in guard skills combined with his ever-evolving physique makes him a potential matchup prize at both ends of the floor who can split time on the wing (where perhaps he can handle the ball at times and initiate some offense while being capable of defending multiple backourt positions) and on the frontline as a forward.

“The other guy that’s been good is Adou Thiero,” Calipari said during the aforementioned Monday presser. “I keep telling him, ‘You’re turning into (his) father.’ I coached his father, and his father is truly cut out of granite. You’re going to see him, and you guys saw him a year ago, but the things he had to work on and needs to continue to work on, he has.”

Thiero is looking to improve his three-point shooting efficiency, which in turn would allow him to increase his volume of three-point attempts, as well as his ball-handling proficiency while developing and learning techniques to effectively man the four-spot at both ends of the floor.

“To speak on the physicality, I’m trying to set the tone and bring it every day,” Thiero said. “We end up scrapping a little bit, but when we get off the court, it’s all love. We know that. But yeah, we try to be as physical as we can. Because we know the SEC. Me and TB, we already played in it. It’s super physical, so we try to set the tone and show everybody you’ve got to be tough. That’s what we’re doing.”

As a sophomore in ’23-24, Thiero started in 19 of the 25 games he played in and averaged 7.2 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 1.1 assists in only 21.3 minutes per outing while shooting 49.2% from the field, including 7-of-22 from 3 for 31.8%, and 80.0% from the free throw line. He averaged 2.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.0 steal against Arkansas in ’23-24 as Kentucky swept the two-game home-and-away series.

He had five games of scoring in double figures as a sophomore with three of the those coming against SEC foes and the other two against No. 1 Kansas and Gonzaga. Against the Jayhawks in an 89-84 loss in November, Thiero registered a double-double — a career-high 16 points and a career-high 13 rebounds.

ESPN’s chief NBA Draft analyst Jonathan Givony projected Thiero as a late-first round selection in his first 2025 NBA mock draft that was released in the spring.

“I’ve played for Cal, this is going to be my third year, so I’ve already experienced all of this,” Thiero said while explaining Calipari’s summer workout regimen and expectations. “They’re (teammates are) learning everything and everything is just coming together great. Everybody’s uncomfortable becoming more comfortable with everything. He tells us your mind should be moving slow as your feet are moving fast. We’re just in the gym grinding every day.”

Brazile’s no spring chicken competing against Calipari-coached teams in the SEC, and he’s adjusting well to the shift of now playing for the Naismith Hall of Fame coach at Arkansas.

“I’m obviously not new to the SEC, so I played coach Cal for three years but you never really know how hard the practices are and how much attention to detail a coach has until you’re actually in practices … This summer has been a lot of good individual stuff and setting the culture for the year.”

Thiero as well as incoming freshman guard and 2024 5-star McDonald’s All American Boogie Fland admitted to Brazile being a head-turner in practices.

“He’s been great,” Fland said of Brazile. “He’s been improving each day. More and more in each practice, you see more TB. The thing that stood out to me is every time he goes up to dunk, his head is at the rim. I’m going to be honest. Him and Adou are probably the two guys I’ve given the most lobs to. I’m going to be honest.”

Thiero has been equally impressed with Brazile.

“I’ve played him for two years (in the SEC),” Thiero said. “So I’d say that I didn’t know that he was that good after my first couple practices with him. I remember this one play. We was doing a drill. It was like a 3-on-3 drill, basically … Boogie threw a lob from the elbow. I was standing at the other elbow. Like outside the perimeter. He throws the lob and I’m like, ‘Who’s grabbing that?’ I just see TB up there, hands at the top of the backboard. I’m like, ‘Oh.’ The ball went through his fingertips. He caught a bit of it with his pinky and ring finger. Then he dunked the ball.

“We all just stopped and looked at each other. We didn’t know he could jump that high. After that, he just kept showing us how great of a player he is. He’s getting better every day.”