These previews are intended to be in the style of Basketball Prospectus’ ongoing D-I previews. See part 1 of their Pac-10 team previews here for an example.
We’ll save the best for first, just because I was the most excited to preview the Bisons. You’ll have to forgive me. I’ll do the rest of the West in near-alphabetical order, starting with Arkansas Tech on Wednesday.
What Harding Did Well (in 2006-2007): Play solid overall defense.
It’s not something you really think about, given Harding’s comparatively fast-paced style, but the Bisons played solid defense all year. Only Henderson State was consistently better than Harding at defending shots of any type.
The Bisons’ overall defensive efficiency was 96.3 (that’s .963 points per possession allowed), second-best in the division. They didn’t achieve it through turnovers (a league average turnover rate of 16.5 wouldn’t explain it), but they did several other things well. All of these things are obscured if you only look at game-level stats, but when you adjust for pace, you can really see how that played to their advantage, at least on that end of the court.
First, the Bisons were the best GSC West team at defending the three, holding opponents to 31.2% shooting from beyond the arc. At the same time, they forced opponents to settle for those lower-percentage shots. Harding opponents took 36.6% of their shots from 3-point range, a figure that only UAM and SAU eclipsed.
Second, Harding held opponents to 49.5% shooting from inside the arc, which was basically a league-average rate, but that’s more impressive when you consider that the Bisons played with a smaller (and faster) lineup than most teams. Also impressive is that the Bisons did a pretty good job keeping opponents from getting second chances, pulling down 71% of their defensive rebound chances, compared to a league average of 68.8%.
The Bisons’ fast pace may not have helped on offense, where their 105.1 rating was exactly the league average, but it certainly did on the defensive end. If Coach Morgan feels like his team has a competitive advantage in conditioning, helped along by the Bisons’ tendency to play a smaller, faster team, then this is probably not a bad way to implement it.
What we learned in 2007: A more limited version of Matt Hall is still one of the top three players in the conference.
The very best offensive players have a way of doing two things well: using a high percentage of his team’s offensive possessions, and doing so with a high efficiency rating. Hall was eclipsed only by CBU’s Kevin Weybright in that regard last season. Only Nate Newell “produced” (not scored) more points through his play than did Hall, though you could argue (and I have) that Newell’s points often came at the expense of some of his better teammates.
Hall is now the two-time defending GSC West POY (going back to his last full year), and he’ll be returning for what I’m hoping is a more successful senior season.
What’s in store for 2008: More high expectations.
Harding was picked first in the division in last year’s preseason coaches poll, and this year, the rest of the division seems to have come to the proper conclusion that Christian Brothers is actually the team to beat. Still, the coaches rate Harding #2, and that expectation is not without merit.
Players who received minutes last year and are gone are: Patrick Andrepont, Reggie Bibb, Brandon Sims, Cole Kee, Rick Hamilton, and Jordan Wise. They accounted for 48.6% of offensive possessions (and about the same percentage of minutes) and an aggregate efficiency rating of 101.5, a fair amount below the team’s average. Still, that’s a lot of production to replace, even if some of it (Kee, Andrepont) wasn’t great production.
With Hall returning, there’s still a go-to scorer, but that hasn’t been a problem in recent years. Finding a second scorer has, and I’m not sure any of the returning players are going to provide that. Based on seniority and last year’s playing time, you would expect the starting lineup to include Barnett and Trent Morgan at guard, Hall and Howard (?) at forward, and Thies at center. That would leave the team with no shooting threat at guard, and only one real scoring threat up front in Hall.
So, where might the Bisons go to replace all of that lost production?
The most promising incoming talent is Rivals 3-star recruit Kevin Brown. After all of his years as an ace pitcher, Brown has decided to use his remaining years of basketball eligibility at Harding. (What…this is a different Kevin Brown?) Seriously, this Kevin Brown is a freshman out of Hughes, the same HS that produced former Bison sharpshooter Lonnie Smith. Brown is a 6’5″ forward who averaged 21 points and 13 rebounds during his senior year, leading Hughes to the 3A state finals. If Coach Morgan doesn’t redshirt him, I imagine that he’ll step in immediately as a starter (and possibly as a #2 scoring threat).
The revolving door of shooting guards will likely continue this year, with Tarleton State transfer Chris Dixon and JC transfers Calvin Rayford and Matt Garner the likely combatants for playing time. Dixon hasn’t played many meaningful games at all in recent years, but he did shoot 42% from outside in his short time at the D-II level. Rayford (a junior) and Garner (soph) have similar profiles, with both scoring about 8 ppg and making nearly 2 threes per game at the JC level.
5’11” freshman point Alex Beene will also be another consideration for guard time, if he doesn’t redshirt. He would be the likely backup for Steven Barnett, even though his HS stats suggest that he may have the higher ceiling as a player. Beene will make the long journey to Harding from Searcy’s own Harding Academy, where he averaged 20 points, 4.8 assists, and 2.6 steals per game as a senior. Even more remarkably, he averaged four made threes per game, shooting 50% from outside. That’s some serious long-range firepower.
Lastly, 5’11” Patrick Hester is also in the mix at guard. Hester averaged just 10 ppg at Bentonville HS, but he has a reputation for quickness. That’s about all I know.
There are really no newcomers with size, so it looks like the Bisons will be running the floor and trying to wear down the opposition for the foreseeable future. 6’6″ freshman Kirk Porter led Greene County Tech (HS) to the Arkansas 5A state finals, averaging 15 points and 7 boards, so he may see some reserve time (again, if he doesn’t redshirt). 6’7″ redshirt freshman Matt Ragsdale was a year ahead of Patrick Hester at Bentonville, averaging 12 and 6 during his senior season. I suppose he’s another bench possibility.
That’s the extent of my knowledge about these newcomers. If I had to guess based on reputation alone, having not seen any of them play, I’d guess that Brown will see the most minutes, possibly even taking a starting role. Dixon looks like the most proven option at guard, though the others (esp. the transfers) will probably be in the mix. Beene looks like a good player as well, so I wouldn’t mind seeing him get some early action.
Here’s my guess for the starting lineup and regular rotation:
C – Jacob Thies – needs to cut down on turnovers and become at least a slight offensive threat to take some pressure off the outside shooters – Brian Howard will probably also get minutes here
F – Matt Hall – he didn’t really look like as much of a physical player last year after the injury, so maybe we’ll see an even better Hall this year
F – Kevin Brown – if not right away, he could be a legitimate force one day
G – Trent Morgan – needs to vastly improve his shooting, both inside and outside the arc, though he’s already a solid defender – perhaps some of the transfers or Beene (or Kellen Morgan) will also get time here, allowing the Bisons to run a deep 3-guard set
PG – Steven Barnett – the junior point may never be a good shooter or scorer, and he still needs to cut down on his turnovers…but like Morgan, he’s a solid defender
To me, it’s a solid group of players, but the lack of size is somewhat concerning. I’ll be interested to see how Ragsdale/Brown/Porter/Howard handle playing inside, since even Hall does most of his damage now away from the basket. Conditioning will be important, and some improvements by returning players will be absolutely necessary if this team is actually going to finish second in the division. Let’s hope they’ve got it together a month from now.
jfwiii.net 
Beene played for his dad whose offense was, “pass it to my son, pass it to my son, pass it to my son.” He is fairly athletic and has some quickness, but is awfully small to be fairly athletic and somewhat quick. Don’t expect to see him in log many minutes, if any.
If he doesn’t have the quickness, I can understand how it would be hard for him to get in the rotation. I suppose if you’re going to have a 5’11” shooter, he has to be able to get off a shot.
This is yet another reason to heavily discount any HS stats. Thanks for the info.
I suspect most at HA are glad dad Beene is gone. He and his sons made the Mike-Nate combo look like beginners.
FYI, this is what you see after hitting submit comment:
WordPress database error: [Table ‘jfwiii0_wrdp1.wp_post2cat’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT cat_ID AS ID, MAX(post_modified) AS last_mod FROM `wp_posts` p LEFT JOIN `wp_post2cat` pc ON p.ID = pc.post_id LEFT JOIN `wp_categories` c ON pc.category_id = c.cat_ID WHERE post_status = ‘publish’ GROUP BY cat_ID
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/jfwiii0/public_html/blog/wp-includes/wp-db.php:160) in /home/jfwiii0/public_html/blog/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 390
I’m working on the comment issue. It’s doing that for my posts as well, although they’re obviously still showing up.
That one’s at the top of my list of current issues with the site. Hopefully I can leave it up and running and still be able to correct it.
Other issues:
1. WordPress 2.3 shifted from “Categories” to “Tags,” breaking that part of my sidebar
2. 2.3 also seems to have broken my blogroll
As a non-programmer, these issues are a huge pain for me to fix.
I’ve already fixed one error that my new theme was having with my page hierarchy (it wanted to display all pages in the header, and I have too many for that). Otherwise, I like the new theme. I was afraid it wouldn’t be wide enough for my stat-driven posts, but (so far) it appears to work.
Oh, I almost forgot:
I doubt that making fun of the Mike-Nate Newell tandem will ever get old. I’ll certainly put it to the test this year, with Nate no longer playing, so I guess we’ll see.
5’11” is too short to get off a shot at the D-II level unless you have the athleticism of an Anthony Atkinson. I checked out Beene’s stats here, and they were pretty solid: http://www.maxpreps.com/FanPages/TeamFrame.mxp/Arkansas/Boys_Varsity_Basketball_Winter_06-07/AreaID-aa803a11-6bef-44e5-9784-c1781b31fc6e/SchoolID-028f3a0a-8143-4e57-a0c7-5ea8e05c989a/Page-Stats
Look at the roster on MaxPreps. The whole team other than the one post player could use a few trips to the buffet line.
Two players in the last few years from Hughes, AR? That’s where my Grandfather’s side of the family is from when they came to America. A couple of them attended Hughes HS. In fact, the family store sign is still there even though their general store (which surprisingly hasn’t caved in) hasn’t been open for 30 years. Talk about a town in the middle of nowhere. It’s 30 miles of country roads through cotton fields off the Interstate. I went once on my way back from Texas to see what the town looked like.
Nate’s found himself gainful employment now… and surprisingly not as his father’s assistant.
He’s a certified mouth to mouth instructor.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=118559203
It’s good to have you back. I like the new look of the blog.
Did you ever post anything about Andruw? I was curious as to what your response would be.
I had planned on posting something about Andruw (first, and then John Schuerholz) before the blog’s total meltdown, and I may still come up with something. Perhaps after the World Series.
And I know the comment thing is exceedingly annoying. That’s my first order of business.
If I can figure out how to darken the font a little bit (shouldn’t be too hard, I just have to read through my WP theme code), I’ll do that as well.
I can’t wait for the Arkansas Tech preview. They’ve got some good ones who I have no clue gained eligibility.
Harding does not need that much inside do they? Who is all good big men in GSC? I can only think of a couple maybe cbu’s and hendersons? atu’s is horrible, monticellos was last year and deltas hodge is small
I wouldn’t be concerned about Harding’s lack of size. Even the Top D-II teams whose rosters I’ve checked out lack guys more than 6’8″ in the middle. Big guys who can score are tough to come by for D-I low majors, much less D-II schools.