Arkansas transfer Khalif Battle names Gonzaga among three finalists
May 2—Khalif Battle showed enough interest in Gonzaga to travel across the country for an official visit to the campus this week.
Now Mark Few's program is one of three schools in the running to land a commitment for the high-scoring Arkansas transfer.
Along with Gonzaga, Battle will focus on Villanova and Kansas State as he moves forward in his recruiting process, the guard told Joe Tipton of On3.com Thursday afternoon.
The Spokesman-Review learned Wednesday that Battle had an upcoming visit scheduled to Gonzaga and national basketball reporter Adam Zagoria, who runs ZagsBlog.com — a website unaffiliated with GU — later reported the guard was scheduled to be on campus Thursday.
Gonzaga is likely to be the last school Battle visits before announcing a commitment, considering he's taken trips to his two other finalists.
A native of Hillsdale, New Jersey, Battle will be at his fourth school in his sixth collegiate season in 2024-25. The 6-foot-5 guard started his career at Butler and spent just one season with the Bulldogs before transferring to Temple, where he played in 45 total games over three years and averaged 17.9 points as a junior.
Battle started in 13 of 32 games for Arkansas last season, but became the Razorbacks' top scorer toward the end of the year when he averaged 29.6 points over his final seven games, including one three-game SEC stretch when he totaled 112 points against Missouri, Vanderbilt and Kentucky.
The veteran guard, who's scored 1,334 career points in 101 games, entered the transfer portal shortly after Arkansas coach Eric Musselman left to take the job at Southern California.
