Graduate-transfer guard Jimmy Whitt will finish his college career where he began.
Whitt (6-3, 170 pounds) committed to Arkansas on Monday. Whitt played for the Razorbacks in 2015-16 before transferring to SMU, where he averaged 12.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, 4 assists, 1.4 steals and shot 48.8 percent from the field while starting 30 games as a redshirt junior.
By transferring as a graduate student, Whitt will have one season of immediately eligibility at Arkansas.
As a sophomore, he shot 48 percent from the field and averaged 10.5 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.8 steals a game.
Whitt started 10 of 32 games and averaged 6.1 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.1 assists as a freshman at Arkansas. He redshirted his first season at SMU.
Whitt and his brother, Marcus, visited Arkansas on Sunday. Marcus was a graduate assistant coach for new Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman during Nevada’s Sweet 16 run in 2018.
"Coach has given me an opportunity to return to my former school and have the success that I didn’t have the first time around," Whitt wrote in a social media post announcing his decision. "It’s not every day you get to end your career where you started. I am beyond grateful, blessed and excited for the opportunity to have another go at playing basketball there."
As a senior at Columbia (Mo.) Hickman, Whitt was rated the No. 21 shooting guard, No. 64 overall prospect in the nation and the No. 1 recruit in Missouri by ESPN.
He averaged 18.7 points, 3 assists and 4.5 steals a game as a high school sophomore while leading his team to a 26-2 record. He averaged 22.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 4.4 steals and 1.4 blocks a game as a junior.
He committed to former Arkansas coach Mike Anderson out of high school over numerous offers, including Marquette, Illinois, SMU and Missouri.
Whitt is the fifth player to transfer to Arkansas since Musselman was hired as the Razorbacks' head coach in April, and the third who will have immediate eligibility.
Arkansas has also added graduate-transfer forward Jeantal Cylla from North Carolina-Wilmington and guard Isaiah Moss from Iowa.
Connor Vanover, a 7-3 center who transferred from California, will apply for a waiver to play immediately, but might not be eligible until the 2020-21 season. Guard JD Notae, who transferred from Jacksonville, is also expected to sit out next season.
Whitt is the second Arkansas player to transfer away but return to finish his career. Sunday Adebayo was forced to transfer to Memphis in 1996 after being caught up in an NCAA investigation, but was allowed to return to the Razorbacks two years later after the NCAA admitted in erred in his case.
With the addition of Whitt, Arkansas has 15 players on scholarship. The NCAA allows only 13 players on scholarship at one time.
Guard Khalil Garland, who has redshirted the past two seasons, hasn’t been medically cleared to play and is a candidate to be on a medical hardship, which would not count against the allotted 13 scholarships.
For the Razorbacks to get down to 13 scholarship players, another scholarship player would have to leave or become a walk-on and pay his own way.