Basketball season approaching, and I'm MIA?

November 5, 2009 Leave a Comment

For most, this will be a rather uninteresting “excuse” post, something I’ve had a bad habit of doing over 5 years of somewhat irregular blogging.  As infrequent as my non-Braves posts have been in the last year or so, it will probably come as no surprise that I’ve decided to further reduce my bloggy footprint.  Before I get to that, let me give a little backstory.

I graduated from Harding in May 2006 and have written regularly about the Bisons basketball team in this location since the beginning of the 2005-2006 season, my last season regularly attending games in Searcy.  I have maintained some form of web footprint for the Bisons (starting with stats only) since early 2004.

Soon after leaving Harding, I merged multiple blogs that I maintained into one location at this current address.  I kept up with fairly intensive posts about the Bisons through the ’07-’08 season, as most of the players I followed as a student were still around.  Last year, I stopped tracking stats and wrote mostly simple game reviews.

This year, I’m going to quit the game reviews, which will result in even less frequent posting about the Bisons.  I’ll admit that I’ve lost some interest in the program in 3 1/2 years away from Searcy, although I’ve still enjoyed attending a few games (including the ’08 GSC tourney in Southaven) and listening on the web.  It’s gotten tougher to justify spending my free time tracking stats for my alma mater when I have a full-time job and other things I need to be doing.

Not being able to watch a reasonable number of games was probably hurting my analysis, anyway.  No matter how much I focused on the stats here (they do tell us a lot), I couldn’t make a lot of intelligent observations without at least occasionally seeing the team in action.  There’s no way I’m paying $5 a pop for terrible video quality on the Penn Atlantic site, and it’s tough to really follow the games on the radio.

Overall, I feel like I put in my time for the team I grew to love over the last 7 years, and I will still follow them as I do my other favorite teams.  For a while, HU was the only D-II school with a presence on one of the major blog networks (MVN).  Perhaps another enterprising HU student will pick up the slack; I know there’s still a solid fan base and plenty of talented and passionate HU students, and it’s inevitable that someone else (who doesn’t directly work for the school) will take up that challenge at some point and do a far better job than I did.

It was a good run, and I’ve had a blast doing it.  I still love analyzing data and writing about it.  I just don’t have as much time for it anymore and can’t do the quality of work I take pride in doing.

Looking toward the future, this blog will still include personal stories and other notes about what’s going on in my life.  I’ve got plenty of things to write about when I can find the time to do it.  In the last month, I’ve seen Muse and U2 live at the Georgia Dome and the Vols beat up on South Carolina for my first game at Neyland Stadium, so I’m not short on experiences to share.  I’ll still be writing about the Braves for the foreseeable future as well.

Now that this is out of the way, if anyone knows where I can read some good coverage of the Bisons, link me up.  The season starts this weekend, and I’m ready.

Filed under D-II / Harding

Bison Basketball 2009-10 Schedule

August 18, 2009 1 Comment

View the full schedule here.

Harding has posted the Bisons’ schedule for the upcoming basketball season, which will be their first second without Matt Hall since I was a freshman in 2002-03 (and he was there then, only as a redshirt).  [The post-Hall era has clearly been uneventful, since I had trouble recalling that last year was the Bisons' first without him.  Either no one caught that or everyone read it and just felt sorry for me.]

They’ll tip off against a familiar border rival, Missouri S&T (formerly Rolla) and face a few more D-II schools in the non-conference schedule than in past years.  St. Edward’s and Incarnate Word will also be familiar D-II opponents from Texas, but they’ll add some fresh meat from the GSC East in West Georgia and West Alabama, with both of those games coming at home in November.

The D-II slate also includes another familiar opponent, Northeastern State (OK) in November, but the Bisons later get a fresh opponent out of an unfamiliar conference, Shepherd University of the WVIAC, as the first game of the new decade.

For the first time in recent memory, the Bisons won’t play a strict home-and-home series with Alabama-Huntsville, only facing them on the road this season.  The UNA home-and-home will continue, though, with the Searcy game coming late in the conference season.

I would presume that the Bisons will alternate home games from year to year with some of the GSC East schools now that they’re not doing the home-and-home with UAH, so perhaps they’ll visit UWG and UWA next year and get UAH at home.  I like that arrangement if that’s how it works out, because the more in-region D-II games you play, the more chances you have to help your seed if you make it to the regional tournament.

In total, the Bisons will play 19 in-region games (including the 14-game conference slate), and they’ll have five more out-of-region D-II games, totaling a whopping 24 within NCAA-II.

The conference arrangement is the same as always: 14 games against the other 7 GSC West teams.  Henderson State will be the home opener on 1/9, and the regular season will conclude with a trip to play OBU on February 27.  The conference tournament will be held in Southaven, MS once again, starting March 3.

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Former HU basketball player to be charged in wife's death

May 2, 2009 Leave a Comment

This is an awful, awful developing story out of Memphis.

Micah Rine Pate, an ’06 graduate of Harding’s nursing school, was last seen on Thursday night after leaving her house for an evening jog.  She initially was reported as missing, but her husband Thomas, a former HU basketball player, has reportedly confessed to accidentally killing her.  He was held for questioning last night and is likely to be charged today, according to My Fox Memphis.  Micah was originally from Searcy, and both of her parents are teachers.

Thomas Pate was a forward who came off the bench for the Bisons for two seasons: 2002-’03 and ’03-’04.  He played a total of 35 minutes in 14 career games (mostly in ’02-’03), with 9 career points and 15 career rebounds.  He appeared in just one game, for two minutes, during the ’03-’04 season.

Hopefully this was just a terrible, tragic accident, and I’m sure we’ll know more about it in the coming days.  Even though we graduated the same year, I didn’t know Micah, but my heart goes out to her family.  I hope you’ll keep them in your prayers.

Filed under D-II / Harding

Hot shooting turns cold, and Bisons fall in GSC semis

March 9, 2009 1 Comment

The Bisons’ season ended on Saturday in what had to be a frustrating shooting performance for the entire team.  Harding made just 3 of 21 three-point attempts and lost to eventual GSC champion Arkansas Tech 73-63.

The Wonder Boys owned the Bisons on the boards in this game, nabbing 20 of 38 offensive rebound chances and 33 of 45 on the defensive end, making this one of the Bisons’ poorest efforts from that perspective for the entire season.  Harding made up for that somewhat with a tremendous edge in turnovers, forcing 28 while only committing 15.

Kevin Brown led the team with 23 points, which I suppose was to be expected if the threes weren’t falling.  Trent Morgan had 14, and Sam Brown had 11.  K-Brown and Morgan combined for 12 of the team’s 19 steals.  Brown also had four blocks and eight rebounds.  Like last year, he saved his best for the last game of the season.

Steven Barnett had 10 assists in what was the last game for he and Brian Howard.  Calvin Rayford, also a senior, played his last game on Wednesday against West Alabama.  Next year’s senior class, unless the Bisons recruit any senior transfers, will consist of Trent Morgan and Matt Garner.

The Bisons finished the season 18-12, which is in line with recent years’ results despite this year’s team seemingly not having as much talent as other recent teams.  The Bisons have not won fewer than 16 games since the 2000-01 season, but they have only topped 18 wins once in the same time period.

I’ll try to keep up with any recruiting updates that the team posts between now and when the new schedule and roster are updated for the 2009-10 season.  This will probably be the last D-II basketball post until then.

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Bisons shoot their way past West Alabama in GSC Tourney

March 5, 2009 Leave a Comment

Great three-point shooting and solid defense carried the Bisons to an opening-round victory last night in the GSC Tournament.  Harding defeated West Alabama 82-56, and the Bisons got out to such a hot start that it was never a close game.

Sam Brown led the team with four threes and 16 points, but three other Bisons reached double figures in scoring: Trent Morgan, Kevin Brown, and Stephen Blake.

UWA, on the other hand, had real scoring problems and shot just 33% from the field.  Leading scorer Jamaine Nance shot just 3-of-14 from the field, instead doing most of his damage at the free-throw line.  Harding’s forwards contributed directly to the poor shooting, with Kevin Brown and Brian Howard blocking five shots between them.

The Bisons had a rebounding edge in this one, but it was pretty much cancelled out by their turnover problems.  Three different Bisons had at least 3 turnovers, and the team totaled 17.  Three-point shooting was obviously the story here, so that and the Bisons’ poor free-throw shooting turned out not to matter.

Harding faces West #1 seed Christian Brothers on Friday evening in the GSC quarterfinals.  The Bisons split their games with the Bucs this year, with each team winning on the other’s home court.  The January game in Memphis was significantly closer, though, as the Bisons needed some clutch shooting to pull that one out, while the Bucs rolled to victory in Searcy last month.  The same two teams faced off in last year’s GSC championship game, with the Bucs fighting past a late Bison rally to win 93-89.

The Bisons and Coach Morgan will need to figure out a way to contain CBU center Nick Kohs, who was recently honored as GSC West Player of the Year.  Kohs averaged 27 points and 11 rebounds in the previous two contests.  The Bisons have precisely no one who can match up to him individually, so it’s not going to be easy, and they also have GSC West first-team guard Reggie Peyton to cover.

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Bisons play it dangerously close, but reach GSC Tourney yet again

March 2, 2009 Leave a Comment

Quick aside for starters: Unlike pretty much every D-I conference (and most in D-II), not everyone makes the GSC tournament.  Since it’s such a large conference, only the top 5 teams in each 8-team division make it, and the #4-5 teams have to play a first-round game while everyone else gets a bye.  This works to give teams an incentive to get their division’s #3 seed, but the top seeds don’t fare much better.  I’d prefer to see a system that rewards the top teams with an additional bye round, like what the Big East is doing this year (only without all 16 teams).

Thursday’s loss at Delta State put the Bisons in peril of missing the GSC Tournament for the first time since before I came to Harding as a freshman in 2002.  The overtime loss to Delta State dropped HU to sixth in the GSC West, so they not  only needed a win on Saturday against OBU, but also an SAU loss to UAM.  They got both, and their reward is a first-round GSC Tournament game against West Alabama on Wednesday night.  The winner will face Christian Brothers on Friday and will have to win two more games beyond that to win the conference and reach the NCAA Tournament.

Delta State 78, Harding 72 (OT)

The Bisons blew a second-half lead on Thursday in Cleveland, allowing this game to go into overtime, and they initially came out strong in OT only to fall in the end.  They spread out the offense in a major way: four players took at least seven shots from the field, and two more took at least five.  Stephen Blake led the team in both points and assists with 14 and 3.

Harding defended Delta State’s shots rather well and shot adequately enough themselves to have won the game, but this one was decided on the boards and with turnovers.  The Bisons lost both of those battles (23-12 in turnovers) and eventually lost the game.  Kevin Brown was the only Bison who contributed more than three rebounds, with an impressive fourteen of his own, but he and Steven Barnett were the biggets turnover culprits, with five each.

Delta State only had eight steals, so I presume that most of the Bison turnovers were sloppy plays of some sort.  Although the Harding offensive attack is not what it has been in recent years, the turnover explosion is not typical of the Bisons’ play this year.

Chad Akins led the Statesmen with 20 points, and DSU otherwise had trouble putting the ball in the basket.

Harding 72, Ouachita Baptist 64

On Saturday night, the Bisons needed a win against the coaches’ preseason pick as the GSC West favorite: Ouachita Baptist.  I can’t fault them, since I wavered between them and Christian Brothers on my own pick.  The Tigers had little to play for, except to spoil the Bisons’ season, but that wasn’t enough.

Once again, the Bisons spread out on offense, with a little more success than they had against Delta State.  Turnovers were still a problem (17), but 49% shooting and a good job on the boards proved to be enough to hold off OBU.

Tiger guard Rowan Ledbetter led both teams with 31 points, but his 11 turnovers and 11 field goals missed made his impressive scoring effort pretty much a wash overall.  OBU proved not to be as deep as the Bisons, giving only six players more than a handful of minutes.  The Bisons, on the other hand, had a fairly regular rotation of nine players.  Only Trent Morgan and Sam Brown played more than 24 minutes.

Matt Garner and Matt Ragsdale were the Bisons’ double-figure scorers in this game, and Garner made every shot he attempted.  Everyone who played took at least four shots, and no one took more than nine.  That’s about as balanced an offense as I’ve ever seen on paper.  Sometimes you’d like to see someone step up as a scoring leader, but it’s hard to complain about a win like this one.

West Alabama

West Alabama wasn’t a particularly strong team this year finishing 5-7 in conference play and winning a three-way tie to get the #4 seed in the GSC East.  The Bisons, despite a losing conference record of their own (6-8), definitely have a shot at getting to a Friday rematch against Christian Brothers.  Their only impressive win all season was against North Alabama on Valentine’s Day, but they finished 1-5 against the top three teams in the GSC East.  In inter-division games, UWA was blown out at Delta State and won at Henderson State.

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Weekend losses drop Bisons to 5-7 in GSC

February 23, 2009 Leave a Comment

Christian Brothers 77, Harding 67

#10 Christian Brothers visited Searcy on Thursday hoping to get a little revenge for Trent Morgan’s buzzer-beater earlier this season in Memphis.  They did just that, holding the Bisons to 36% shooting from the field in a 77-67 win.

Nick Kohs and Reggie Peyton scored 45 of CBU’s points, while Steven Barnett was the only offensive threat for the Bisons, with a career-high 20 points.  The game’s only other double-figure scorer was Kirk Porter, and no other Bison made more than three field goals.

The turnover and rebounding battles were fairly even in this game, so the Bucs won this one on defense.  The shooting guards had an especially rough night: Morgan, Sam Brown, and Stephen Blake together made just 6 of 25 shots, totaling 18 points.

Kevin Brown and Porter fouled out of the game (as did Barnett), and Brian Howard only played 13 minutes, so the Bisons had even less size out on the floor than usual in this one.  Nick Kohs finished with 12 rebounds and a double-double, but it wasn’t that bad considering the circumstances.

Arkansas-Monticello 78, Harding 62

The Bisons had a chance to pull into a fourth-place tie on Saturday at Arkansas-Monticello against a struggling Weevil team.  UAM prevailed, though, and the Bisons are now tied with Southern Arkansas for the fifth spot in the GSC West standings.

Ray Wright led both teams in scoring with 22 points, while the Steven/Stephen guard duo (Barnett/Blake) had 18 apiece for the Bisons.  Trent Morgan’s struggles continued, as he made just 1 of 11 shots from the field.  Barnett did most of his scoring at the charity stripe (12-for-16), while Blake was on fire from long range (5-for-8).

The Bisons shot just 37% and lost the rebounding battle in a major way, allowing the Weevils to succeed on over half of their offensive rebound chances.  The Weevils are a much more athletic team, but the Bisons were more competitive when they played in Searcy last month.

The Bisons’ last two conference games are at Delta State and at home vs. Ouachita Baptist.  They split close games against the two in the first half of the conference schedule.  SAU will swap last week’s schedule with the Bisons, hosting CBU and visiting UAM to close the season.  Right now, I like the Bisons’ chances of reaching the GSC Tournament better than the Muleriders’, mostly because of the schedule.

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Loss at SAU, Win vs ATU mark odd Bison split

February 16, 2009 1 Comment

This past week’s split leaves the Bisons at 5-5, tied for fourth in the GSC West.  They’re barely hanging on to a tourney berth, but hanging on nonetheless.

The Bisons staked out a big lead on Thursday at Southern Arkansas, but the Muleriders made threes and won the rebounding battle to take the game in the end, 78-69.

Steven Barnett had a great offensive game, scoring 19 with six assists to just two turnovers.  Kirk Porter had 14 points off the bench, and Sam Brown added 11 to round out the scorers with double-digits.  Kevin Brown played just 16 minutes, which opened up some playing time for both Porter and Matt Ragsdale.  Trent Morgan also only played 20 minutes, and he finished with the game with six points and four fouls.

Saturday was a totally different story, only with some of the same cast in starring roles.  Barnett and Porter, once again, were the team’s leading scorers in a 94-67 rout of Arkansas Tech.  There was plenty of playing time to go around, as only Barnett and Sam Brown played more than 24 minutes of this somewhat surprising blowout.

Barnett had 18, Porter had 17, and Stephen Blake had 15 to lead the scoring effort.  All three were quite efficient, but Blake’s 15 points on 8 shots, along with four assists, two steals, and no turnovers of his own, made his box score line perhaps the team’s most impressive.

The Bisons also turned up the defense in this game, holding ATU to just 30% shooting from the field.  Blake, Barnett, and Trent Morgan contributed to a slight revival of free-throw shooting competence, as the Bisons shot 68% for the game after spending their last two games in the 50% range.

Saturday’s win had to be a satisfying one after the Bisons’ earlier 16-point loss in Russellville, and they’ll need to build on it for the upcoming stretch of tough games against Christian Brothers, Delta State, UAM, and OBU (possibly for the final conference tourney spot).

Filed under D-II / Harding Tagged with , ,

Bisons topple Reddies + Other Notes

February 9, 2009 4 Comments

Thursday night, the Bisons defeated Henderson State 73-60, evening their GSC record at 4-4.  They needed to win that one, since it’s arguably their easiest conference game, and the schedule only gets tougher from this point forward.  Kevin Brown and Trent Morgan each had 19 points, although Morgan required 18 shots to get to his total.  Steven Barnett had one of his strangely typical-for-him 2 point/9 rebound/8 assist/5 turnover games, but the Bison defense was strong enough to overcome whatever offensive troubles they may have encountered.  The Bisons’ poor 51% free-throw shooting didn’t cost them this time around, although it’s certainly worth addressing.  The Reddies shot just 30% from the field and also lost the rebounding battle.

That’s an admittedly short summary, since my weekend was rather full.  My church held a men’s retreat on Friday evening & Saturday morning, and on Saturday afternoon, Melissa and I went to Atlanta to pick up some shelves for our basement and to shop at Trader Joe’s.

Aside #1: We would do all of our grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s if we could afford to drive an hour-and-a-half to Atlanta once a week, but right now we only make it a point to go there when we go through town for some other reason, like buying Elfa shelves and eating a pre-Valentine-avoid-the-crowd dinner at Ted’s (nothing says “romantic” like a delicious hamburger).  Those were our reasons on Saturday, and they made sense to me.  I’m seriously hooked on Trader Joe’s instant oatmeal, salsa, and spaghetti sauce, by the way.  Just not all at once.

Aside #2: So how’s the basement coming, you ask?  I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but we’re finishing it into an office/den open space, which you might also call my “big boy play room,” “man cave,” or “serious fire hazard.”  All but one of the walls is now painted, and we’ve bought the material to hang our drop ceiling.  We lack carpet and baseboards (and hardwood for the entry way), and we still have a windowsill to finish, but that’s about it.  I’m hoping to have it all done in time for March Madness.

On Sunday, we hosted our small group from church, which required us to do a little extra house cleaning beforehand.  Our group is getting to be pretty large for a “small” group, so it’s not a small task to cram everyone into our living room, but we do enjoy it.  Because of our size, we may actually split into two smaller groups pretty soon.  I’ll be leading one of those two groups, so that’s an exciting prospect for a number of reasons.  Lately I’ve been thinking about that a lot, and I may devote a few posts to small group ministry and related topics when that new group gets going.

In other news, it’s probably Monday as you’re reading this.  Hope your week is off to a good start.

Filed under Christianity/Ministry, D-II / Harding, Other Tagged with , , , ,

Harding played basketball games last week?

February 2, 2009 1 Comment

I actually knew they did, but I’ve been moving pretty constantly since the middle of last week, and I haven’t had the chance to write up game summaries.  It’s a good thing I don’t blog for a living, although I bet I could be decent at it if I didn’t have a pesky regular job.

This weekend, I worked on some of the electrical outlets in the basement, picked up a truckload of ceiling tile (not really doing anything with it yet), and cleaned the house for an impromptu Super Bowl party.  So, no time for blogging.

Now that I’ve shared some pitiful excuses, let’s talk basketball.  The Bisons split last week’s games, losing at home to Delta State 72-70 and winning at Ouachita Baptist 69-67.  Those games completed the first seven-game half of the Bisons’ GSC schedule, with Harding now alone in fifth place at 3-4.  Five of those seven games were decided by five or fewer points (three losses, two wins).  Change a mere handful of possessions, and the Bisons could either be 6-1 or 1-6.  Instead, #17 Christian Brothers and Henderson State hold those records, and the Bisons fall squarely in between.

I won’t go into much detail for this past week’s games.  Kevin Brown performed his disappearing act against DSU, and the guards couldn’t shoot the Bisons back into the game.  The team finished at 32% from the field, and they won’t win many games that way.  Neither team could get a defensive rebound, and that kept the Bisons in the game.

The Bisons controlled the boards at OBU, and Steven Barnett had an 18-point scoring effort, although it was his second straight game with 7 turnovers.  Trent Morgan’s poor shooting continued, but he was eclipsed in that department by OBU’s Antonio Benjamin, who put up a donut in eleven field goal tries.  Turnovers were the main reason the Tigers stayed in the game, since the Bisons shot pretty well.

The Bisons get Saturday off this week, but they’ll need a revenge win at home against Henderson State on Thursday to keep pace in the West.  Harding provided the Reddies with their only win in the conference season’s first half.  Next Thursday, the Bisons will travel to SAU needing another win because the schedule gets much tougher from there.

Filed under D-II / Harding, Other Tagged with , , ,

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