Nuggets make Brazile third Razorback drafted with 35th pick

When the Denver Nuggets called Trevon Brazile’s name Wednesday night, it completed one of the better draft evenings Arkansas basketball has seen in a long time.

Brazile went 35th overall to Denver in the second round of the 2026 NBA Draft, joining Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas as Razorbacks taken on the same night.

Acuff went seventh overall to the Sacramento Kings. Thomas landed with the Cleveland Cavaliers one pick before Brazile at No. 34.

Three players from one program in a single draft isn’t something that happens every year in college basketball.

For Arkansas, it’s a sign of where the program stands as a pipeline to the pros.

Brazile’s path to Wednesday was anything but clean. He transferred to Fayetteville from Missouri ahead of the 2022-23 season and tore his ACL just nine games in.

That wiped out most of his first year as a Razorback before he ever really got started.

The year that followed wasn’t much easier.

The Hogs finished 16-17 overall and Eric Musselman left for Southern California when it was over. Brazile could’ve walked away from the whole situation. He didn’t.

When John Calipari was hired to replace Musselman, Brazile made the call to return. He said the decision came down to where he believed he could develop, not where he could make the most money in the short term.

“For me, my loyalty was strong at Arkansas,” Brazile said. “Like, I couldn’t imagine myself playing in another college jersey. The fans there are great. The coaching staff, when Cal and them came in, I was just like, ‘I can’t leave this place.’ I love that place.”

Turning down bigger money to stay with Hogs

The financial side of that decision wasn’t small. Brazile said the offers he received to leave were substantial.

“I got offered double the amount of money I was getting paid at Arkansas,” Brazile said. “I could have went and got paid somewhere else, but I knew nobody else was going to be able to develop me and be able to be hands-on with me like that staff.”

That belief in the Arkansas staff showed up in his final season’s stat line.

Brazile averaged 13 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game in his senior year with the Razorbacks, adding 1.6 blocks and 1.5 steals per game. He shot 52.5% from the floor and 34.1% from 3-point range.

He was named to the SEC All-Tournament Team, averaging 14.7 points and 10.0 rebounds with two double-doubles in that run.

HoopsHD named him the 2026 SEC Defensive Player of the Year. He also earned a SEC Player of the Week honor in December after a performance against Texas Tech.

The combination of rim protection and perimeter shooting gave Brazile a profile that drew attention from multiple teams during the pre-draft process.

He’s the only Razorback ever to record 40 3-pointers, 40 blocked shots and 40 steals in a single season.

Staff gets credit for Brazile’s development

Brazile made clear after a pre-draft workout with Sacramento that the credit for his growth belongs to the people around him in Fayetteville.

“I got to give the credit to the staff at Arkansas,” Brazile told reporters following his Kings workout. “I’m not saying it’s easy, but things come a little bit quicker for me just because of the way they do their thing over there. It’s a lot of attention to detail, you just got to be consistent.”

He added that the pre-draft circuit itself felt familiar because of how Arkansas had prepared him.

“We’re traveling from city to city to city, you got to bring it every day. They don’t care how much you’ve been flying, none of that. So just bringing it every play, every workout,” Brazile said.

Brazile also crossed the 1,000-point threshold for his Razorback career in a game against Hawai’i this past season, finishing with 1,029 points at Arkansas.

He spent five total college seasons between Missouri and Fayetteville.

With his selection Wednesday, Arkansas now has 50 players all-time drafted to the NBA. Brazile also becomes the 65th player ever drafted under Calipari as a head coach.

The Hogs got three players selected in the span of a few hours Wednesday night.

Brazile’s road to that moment — two ACL recovery stretches, a coaching change, bigger money left on the table — made the call from Denver a little more meaningful than most.