Arkansas basketball’s Trevon Brazile set for reunion after tearing ACL vs. UNC-G in 2022

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Trevon Brazile was in the midst of a breakout season for the Arkansas basketball team last year when he suffered a torn ACL against UNC-Greensboro on Dec. 6, 2022.

On Friday night, 346 days after the injury, Brazile will see the navy and gold of UNC-Greensboro again.

The No. 14 Razorbacks (3-0) will welcome the Spartans to Bud Walton Arena for a second-straight year. Brazile is healthy again, and head coach Eric Musselman doesn’t want his star player reflecting on the trauma from a year ago.

“I hope (Brazile) just comes out and plays,” Musselman said. “I think it’s always hard for a player knowing there was an injury against a certain team.”

Through three games, Brazile is still finding his footing and role on a team filled with transfers and high expectations. He’s been starting games slow, with four combined shots in the first halves of the last two games against Gardner-Webb and Old Dominion.

But Brazile has shown his best stuff in flashes. He’s averaging 11.3 points and 5.7 rebounds a game while shooting 57.1% from the three-point line. Brazile is also averaging three blocks a game, which ranks ninth in the country, and he’s put together some highlight-reel dunks that show the type of explosiveness NBA general managers might covet in the upcoming draft.

For Musselman, those dunks and blocks show a player who is fully comfortable in his body coming off a major injury.

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“He’s done a great job of playing fearless,” Musselman said. “He’s dunking the ball. Trying to dunk on people. He took a hard foul at the rim tonight trying to dunk on somebody. If it was in your head, so to speak, you wouldn’t have however many blocks he’s had because leaving your feet is where the fear might come in and he leaves his feet a lot.”

Before the season started, Brazile said he didn’t want to start playing until he was “110 percent.” After the Razorbacks 86-68 win over Gardner-Webb Friday, Brazile provided a confident outlook on his health, both physically and mentally.

“I feel like I’m probably at 120 probably now,” he said.

Brazile’s progress will be something to monitor all season. For now, he can pick his spots offensively, but Arkansas needs Brazile to be one of the best players in the country if it wants to accomplish goals like an SEC title and a run to the Final Four.

Perhaps Friday’s reunion with UNC-Greensboro is a chance for Brazile to put the injury chapter behind him officially.

The Razorbacks will need to play much better than they did in Monday’s 86-77 win over Old Dominion. The Spartans nearly pulled off an upset over Arkansas a year ago, and they’ve already played Vanderbilt down to the wire this season.

“UNC-G is good. We were down five last year in this game at halftime. The game was a single-digit game,” Musselman said.

“They’ve got some guys back from last year that really, really hurt us. We need to play our best game of the season on Friday.”