FAYETTEVILLE – Highly touted freshman guard Jordan Smith Jr. played well during Arkansas' four-game foreign tour in the Bahamas, but the Washington, D.C., native was held in check in Arkansas 76-72 exhibition win over No. 15 Gonzaga on Saturday.
But Arkansas fans are just happy Smith is okay after he went down with just over 13 minutes to go in the game on a fast break. Smith appeared to have injured either his right ankle or knee on the play, which he did not draw a foul on, though head coach John Calipari revealed in his post-game news conference that Smith's apparent injury, as well as those of Miikka Muurinen and Cooper Bowser, were all cramps.
"I don't know if the gym was hot or maybe we're not going as hard as I think we are," Calipari said. "But we had like three guys cramp up, like you're thinking they're hurt. No, they cramped. So we had to figure that out. I told Matt [Townsend], our trainer, I said, 'Matt, we got to figure out what happened'."
Smith was in pain and helped back to the locker room by the training staff, though he returned to the bench and checked back into the game with 5:53 to go.
But neither before he went down nor after he returned to the floor did Smith make a shot from the field, going 0-9 from the floor and 0-2 from three. Smith's only point came on a free throw late in the game, though he missed his other foul shot and ended the game with only a single point.
Smith was effective in other areas – the offense flowed well through him early, and he had four rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals in 23 minutes – but his lack of offensive firepower was disappointing.
The good news is that Smith's struggles aren't indicative of how he'll play throughout the season. He was a five-star recruit for the reason and has another exhibition game against Memphis on Wednesday to get his shot to fall before Arkansas opens the season against UAPB on Nov. 3.
There certainly isn't any reason for fans to panic about Smith's lack of offensive production on Saturday, and even if he struggles to score again against Memphis, he's capable of catching fire at any given moment.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/arkansas as Jordan Smith Jr.'s Scoreless Debut The Biggest Surprise In Arkansas' Win Over Gonzaga.