Arkansas signee Ted Kapita signs professional contract

The Arkansas Razorbacks men’s basketball team suffered a huge loss today as signee Ted Kapita opted to turn professional rather than spend a semester at a prep school with the goal of improving his grades. Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports reported Kapita’s decision on Twitter.

A four-star recruit formerly of West Virginia’s Huntington Prep, it looked like that Kapita would head to Ohio’s Spire Academy to improve his grades before trying to enroll at Arkansas in the second semester. Instead, the 6-foot-9 forward will head to France and go the route of Emmanuel Mudiay, who was committed to Southern Methodist but then opted to play in China following academic issues. This past June, Mudiay was drafted seventh overall by the Denver Nuggets.

This is a rough blow for Arkansas, who already lost a key player in SEC Player of the Year Bobby Portis to the draft in June and also saw three players arrested for forgery this offseason. One of those three, Jacorey Williams, has been dismissed from the team while Anton Beard and Dustin Thomas remain on indefinite suspension.

Underclassmen Moses Kingsley and Trey Thompson should help provide help up front, but both are underclassmen with little playing experience. Graduate transfer Willy Kouassi should help too, but he is little more than a band-aid to the situation. The long and short of it is that Kapita is a tremendous loss for this program, and coach Mike Anderson may have to get creative in 2015-16 as the Razorbacks look to stay competitive in the SEC.

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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports

Rumor: Nick Saban unhappy, miserable at Alabama?
Rumor: Nick Saban unhappy, miserable at Alabama?