The Athletic is fully impressed by John Calipari and Arkansas

It's now just two months before the start of the new college basketball season. We are getting even closer to October preseason practice and the eventual start of the journey for John Calipari's Arkansas team. The Athletic offered an offseason look at the Razorbacks. The industry consensus remains bullish on the Hogs:

"Outside of Arizona, Arkansas had the highest ceiling among teams who took trips this summer. I believe John Calipari, entering his third season at Arkansas, has his best team yet, and I’m not alone.

“I think Arkansas is loaded,” Cincinnati coach Jerrod Calhoun said, unprompted, during a discussion about his team’s trip to the Baha Mar Summer League in The Bahamas, where Arkansas was also playing. “I got to see them live. They got a good team, man. Elite. Athletes. Just a really, really good team. I thought they were phenomenal.”

"Arkansas cruised in four games against The Bahamas national team (106-59), Carleton (Canada) University (98-58), Toros del Valle (Colombia) (91-49) and the University of Calgary (105-48). One reason Calhoun was smitten is freshman guard Jordan Smith Jr., who Calhoun called “a top player in college basketball.”

The article later continued: 

"Offensively, Calipari once again has microwave scorers who can get hot and take over games. It’s not going to be like last year, where it was the Darius Acuff Jr. show. Smith, Georgia transfer guard Jeremiah Wilkinson and freshman wing Abdou Toure will each have stretches where they take over games. Junior wing Billy Richmond III can also get hot but doesn’t force the issue as much as the other three, and as he’s shown in the past, he’ll be at his best in transition."

It's informative and encouraging to hear someone outside the Arkansas inner circle sing the praises of the Razorbacks. It's easy for the people in and around the team to be positive and make optimistic evaluations of personnel and talent, but when someone on the outside provides a ringing endorsement, it hits differently. No one is trying to promote the program or sell it. An outside observer lends objectivity and a willingness to call things as he sees them. This is not to imply that internal observations aren't worth as much, only that the outside observations convey a measure of impartiality and are therefore trustworthy in a certain way. The outside affirmations complement and supplement the internal ones. It's a good thing for Arkansas fans to read with the season approaching.