Staff report

Little Rock Christian Academy basketball star JJ Andrews has announced a commitment to Arkansas and coach John Calipari.

A 4-star recruit, the 6-foot-7 junior shooting guard is considered to be the best player in Arkansas, hands down, and has played on two state championship teams. He averaged 28.5 points, 10.1 rebounds and 3.4 assists as a junior and was the Gatorade Player of the Year for the state.

Nationally, he’s ranked highly, top 25, something in that range. He’s a MaxPreps All-America.

JJ made a visit to Salisbury about two years ago and impressed everyone he met when his mother, Janetta Heggins Andrews, was inducted into the Salisbury-Rowan Hall of Fame.

Heggins was a terrific basketball/track/volleyball high school athlete, starting her career at North Rowan before playing three years at South Rowan. She graduated from South and played college basketball for Western Carolina.

Arkansas was considered the  favorite all along in what turned out to be a fairly massive recruiting battle because JJ’s father, Shawn Andrews, was a standout football player for the Razorbacks and went on to a stellar NFL career as an offensive lineman.

NC State was one of the schools that JJ visited, but that was always  a long shot. He turned down a number of SEC schools to stay home and be a Hog.