Arkansas taking its best shot with Perry

Forward Reggie Perry.

One of Arkansas’ top 2018 basketball targets has been in Fayetteville the past couple of days and the Razorbacks staff hopes to convince him this is where he should play his college basketball.

Thomasville, Ga., junior forward Reggie Perry (6-9, 225), a Top 100 player per ESPN.com, visited the Razorbacks on Monday. Perry moved from Little Rock two years ago and now plays for the Arkansas Hawks AAU team.

Perry and the 16-and-under Hawks then worked out in the Ronnie Brewer Gymnasium at the Fayetteville Boys and Girls Club on Tuesday.

“It is a nice program with a nice facility with nice people all around and great coaches,” Perry said. “I have known (Razorback assistant) Coach (Melvin) Watkins and (Arkansas head) Coach (Mike) Anderson for a while and they are great people. I love the university.”

Perry has offers from Arkansas, Auburn, Alabama, Mississippi State, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Iowa State, Kansas State, Virginia, Middle Tennessee State and Central Florida.

“I’m looking for great coaches, a family-oriented place and great facilities so that I can get better,” said Perry, whose dad Al played for Mississippi State and led the SEC in assists in 1975 and 1976.

Arkansas is pushing hard for both Perry - who led Thomasville to a 28-2 mark last season - and fellow Hawks forward Ethan Henderson (6-8, 190), a Little Rock Parkview standout with offers from Arkansas, Indiana, Notre Dame, Arizona State, LSU and Texas.

“I’m convinced that they (the Razorbacks) that they really want them,” Hawks coach Bill Ingram said. “They have been working them really hard.

“With them, I think, both of their families are more into making sure they are on the right track academically because if you are doing all this and you don’t have this together academically then it is a waste of time.”

“But I think definitely that Arkansas has a very good shot at getting both. That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong, but I think that is how it is going to go. “

Perry, who played his freshman season at Tallahassee, Fla., Mcclay, is AAU teammates with Little Rock Christian sophomore point guard Justice Hill (5-10, 160), a 2019 prospect that is already committed to Arkansas.

“He talks to me about it every day about -committing to Arkansas - and he just goes from there,” Perry said.

Perry has put recruiting on the back burner until his teams gets done playing in July Adidas AAU events in Spartanburg, S.C., St. Louis and Las Vegas.

“We plan on winning these next three tournaments,” Perry said. “We definitely want to win in South Carolina and Vegas. We lost in Vegas in the semifinals last year, but we have beat the team already this year that we played in semifinals. We beat them in Atlanta and we just want to go with a chip on our shoulder and plan on winning South Carolina and Las Vegas.”

Perry will then take a look at recruiting.

“I really haven’t narrowed anything down yet,” Perry said. “Later on, after July, once I get to August, I will set down with my parents and start narrowing things down.”