By Rob Patrick
The Conway basketball program has developed to the point where it sets the standard, certainly in central Arkansas and, just as much as Fayetteville in the West, in regard to the rest of the State.
First, there are a lot of great athletes in the Conway program but more than that, they’re skilled basketball players. And they’ve been in a program since seventh grade where everybody’s on the same page, doing the same things, running the same systems, from top to bottom. There’s a lot of pride in the program and every good basketball player on campus wants to be a part of it to the point where there’s a depth of talent that even makes practices competitive.
They’ve been in every State tournament this decade finishing in the finals two of the last three years, made the semifinals three other times and got past the first round at State in all but two of those seasons.
This year, the Wampus Cats are ranked among the best teams in the State. They came into Tuesday’s 7A-Central Conference contest against the Bryant Hornets with a 20-2 overall record and a perfect 10-0 slate in the league.
Yes, the Hornets were up against the best and, unfortunately, their recent struggles in the first half of their games continued. And, while they rallied to give themselves a chance to win in previous outings marked by similar slow starts, Conway proved to be too tough a challenge for that to happen.
The Wampus Cats left Bryant with a 70-39 win.[more]
It’s a game the Hornets need to forget immediately because they face an absolute must-win on Friday at Cabot if they are to keep their hopes alive for a State tourney bid. They’ll may also need a win in one of their final two games of the regular-season next week at home against North Little Rock or at Little Rock Central.
It would help if they could overcome a recent trend: Those slow starts.
The Hornets fell behind 19-3 by the end of the first quarter. That margin grew to 33-4 before Bryant could get much going.
“Conway’s number one for a reason and they came out hot and, of course, we came out and played the first half like we have the last three or four ballgames,” commented Hornets coach Ron Marvel. “We found ourselves way behind early and it wasn’t a whole lot of fun. Now, the third quarter — just like we have the last few ballgames — we came out and had a pretty good quarter. We scored 17 points the third quarter after it took us a whole half to score 10. But that’s been the story the last three or four games. The first half, we’re not there then we show up at halftime.
“We’re not doing anything different,” he pondered. “I don’t understand it. These are good kids. They try hard. They, basically, try to do what you tell them. We’re just not playing very well.”
And if a Hall of Fame coach like Marvel can’t figure it out, you know it’s a quandary.
Of course, he concurred, a lot of the credit goes to Conway’s defensive abilities in this game.
Bryant’s only basket of the first quarter was a 3-pointer by Brandon Parish after Conway had jumped to a 7-0 lead.
That came at the 3:42 mark of the first quarter. The Hornets didn’t score again until K-Ron Lairy hit a free throw at the 5:51 mark of the second quarter. By then, Conway had run its lead to 25-3.
Then it was 33-4 before the Hornets managed their second field goal of the game off a drive by sophomore L.J. McLaughlin.
McLaughlin would add a pair of free throws before the half was over and Dontay Renuard beat the buzzer with a tip-in. Still, Conway led at the break 34-10.
Lairy, on his way to a game-high 19 points including 18 in just the second half, sparked the Hornets’ offense in the third quarter. Despite the improved scoring, the Hornets were still outscored in the period as Conway’s lead ballooned to 53-27 going into the final eight minutes.
Bryant had trimmed the lead of as much as 27 down to 19 when Lairy connected on a pair of 3’s around a layup by Kendall Buzlaff midway through the third quarter.
Conway’s Colt Fason, who led the Cats with 18 points, and Kenyon McNeaill, with 14, helped their team’s response and Bryant was never that close again.
WAMPUS CATS 70, HORNETS 39
Score by quarters
Conway 19 15 19 17 — 70
BRYANT 3 7 17 12 — 39
CONWAY (21-2, 11-0) 70
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Sims 2-5 2-3 2-2 4 2 6
Delph 3-5 0-0 0-2 2 1 6
Purifoy 4-7 1-1 0-3 3 0 9
Fason 8-9 0-0 4-5 9 1 18
McNeaill 5-12 0-0 1-4 5 1 14
Reed 0-0 0-0 0-2 2 1 0
Norris 2-5 1-2 1-1 2 1 5
Clardy 0-1 4-4 1-2 3 1 4
Alspaugh 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Harmon 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 3
Noble 1-1 0-0 1-0 1 0 2
Davis 0-0 0-1 0-1 1 0 0
Collins 1-1 1-2 0-0 0 0 3
Shook 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Cartwright 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Guiden 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Team 2-3 5
Totals 27-49 9-13 12-25 37 9 70
HORNETS (9-15, 2-9)
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Lairy 5-14 6-9 1-1 2 1 19
Parish 1-5 0-0 0-0 0 1 3
Rayburn 0-5 0-0 1-1 2 0 0
Butzlaff 1-1 0-0 1-1 2 2 2
Renuard 2-9 0-0 1-4 5 2 5
Hampton 1-2 0-0 1-2 3 2 2
McLaughlin 2-5 2-2 2-0 2 0 6
Cozart 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 3 0
Motto 1-1 0-0 2-1 3 2 2
Nossaman 0-3 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Garner 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Team 1-2 3
Totals 13-47 8-11 10-13 23 15 39
Three-point field goals: Conway 7-18 (McNeaill 4-7, Fason 2-2, Harmon 1-1, Delph 0-2, Sims 0-2, Norris, 0-2, Purifoy 0-1, Guidon 0-1), Bryant 5-23 (Lairy 3-8, Renuard 1-4, Parish 1-3, Rayburn 0-4, McLaughlin 0-1, Cozart 0-1, Nossaman 0-1, Garner 0-1). Turnovers: Conway 11, Bryant 14.
