By Rob Patrick
CONWAY — The Conway Wampus Cats basketball team includes a couple of men. Oh sure, they might be 17 or 18 but they're men and not boys in stature, long and strong.
To stop Preston Purifoy and/or Jarvis Garner, you either have to have someone equal or nearly so to them in size and strength and athleticism, or you have to play great fundamental defense, set up, hold steady and sacrifice the ol' body when they come charging down the lane. To out-rebound them, you've got to be sound, establish position and block them out.
You also have to hope the officials will recognize your defensive efforts as you get bowled over and make a charge call instead of a block call. And you have to hope the officials will call over the back as you block out or the greater length of the Cats will make it a moot point as they play over the top of you.
Four times in the Bryant Hornets' 7A-Central Conference game against Conway at Wampus Cat Arena, senior Dijon Benton tried to take a charge, hitting the floor each time and absorbing the bruises. None of the calls went his way. He'd pop up and show his frustrations, looking to the Hornets bench as if saying, "I can't believe they didn't call that a charge."
And a couple of times, the officials warned him about his reaction, threatening to give him a technical foul. He avoided that but foul trouble limited his aggressiveness and risk-taking after that. Still, he eventually fouled out.
Garner and Purifoy went on to combine for 32 points as the league-leading Cats overwhelmed the Hornets 71-40. Guard Micah Delph, son of former Arkansas Razorback great Marvin Delph, added 17 points. He was the quickest player on the court.[more]
"Athleticism and size are hard to overcome, no matter how you slice it," commented Hornets head coach Mark Smith. "I thought we played really hard the first quarter and a half. I was proud of them. But then we started making a few mental mistakes. I thought we shot the ball too quick a couple of times. That played to run-outs for them. Their game is to try to pick it up, go at a fast pace. We executed well for a while and did some good things. We missed a couple of people that were open, but that happens."
The Hornets actually led 8-5 halfway through the first quarter when Tim Floyd hit a 3 to snap a 5-5 tie. Conway surged to a 12-8 lead but Dontay Renuard's three-point play clipped the lead to 1 with 1:18 left in the period.
Delph answered with a 3-pointer, however. After a Bryant miss, Conway's star guard Kenyon McNeill was pushing the ball up the floor as Benton tried to get back defensively. McNeall got into the Bryant lane and tried to make a move only to have his shoes stick to the floor. His knees buckled and twisted and he crashed to the floor with no contact from Benton. McNeall left the game and did not return.
The problem for the Hornets was that Garner came along, picked up the loose ball and scored. Smith protested, noting that McNeall, whether injured or not, had to be called for traveling on the play and Garner's basket should not be allowed. His protest, however, went unheeded. So, instead of trailing 15-11 with the ball, the Hornets trailed 17-11 and the driving jumper that Benton canned before the buzzer only trimmed the lead to 4 instead of whittling it to 2.
After Purifoy and Benton traded baskets, Conway put together a 15-2 blitz to take control of the game. Bryant's only basket during that stretch was a layup by K-Ron Lairy. Purifoy scored 6 of his points in that stretch including a flying dunk that brought the home crowd to its feet. Delph capped the run with a trey at the 2:14 mark of the second quarter.
Floyd finally ended the blitz with a follow shot but the Wampus Cats went on to take a 38-21 lead into the locker room.
It has been a rough senior year athletically for Floyd, Bryant's leading scorer, who was held to 6 points in the game. During football season, Floyd, the team's top returning receiver, suffered an injury early on and missed the guts of the campaign. By the time he returned, the Hornets were on their fourth quarterback who was not being given much rope especially with a record-breaking running back behind him. So, when Floyd returned, there weren't many passes to catch as the Hornets kept it on the ground.
In basketball, he's been a marked man. As a junior, he was able to play a complementary role, a gunslinger on a senior-laden team that was in the process of making its second consecutive trip to State. While opposition defenses concentrated on the seniors on that team, Floyd, the unknown commodity, was able to light up the scoreboard with 3-point range and mad hops for dunking.
This season, Floyd was the lone returning player that had experienced considerable varsity playing time before. He became the focus of the opponent defenses. After piling up 20, 25, 30 points in some games last season, he has struggled at times to even make it to double-digits this season. His frustrations boiled over on Friday.
Conway had expanded the lead to 44-23. A couple of baskets by Brandon Parish started a bit of a Bryant rally. His layup off a nice feed from Renuard started a mini-run. K-Ron Lairy added a pair of free throws and, once again, Benton tried to set up for a charge and was called for a block.
Still, the Hornets forced a turnover and, at the other end, Floyd got a feed at the baseline and attacked the basket. Garner came over, however, and stuffed his shot, a rare thing for the 6-5 leaper. The ball slammed to the floor as the Conway student section expressed their delight. But Garner was called for a foul on the play and, on his way to the free-throw line, bumped Garner and was given a technical. It's the kind of thing that happens in other games and gets overlooked but not this time.
Floyd hit a free throw and came to the bench while Delph hit the two technical shots and, on the subsequent possession, Garner scored on a stickback to make it 48-28.
"We lost our composure," Smith acknowledged. "It was out of frustration. I told them I was disappointed in their effort on Tuesday (in a loss at home to Russellville). Tonight, I told them I was proud of their effort, I was just disappointed in the way that we handled ourselves late in the game."
Parish hit a short jumper and Renuard fed Bryce Whitfield for a layup on a nice back-door play, trimming the margin to 48-32. Garner and Purifoy answered with free throws before Reid Prescott scored on a nice drive for Bryant to make it 51-34 going into the fourth quarter.
Floyd returned but Conway went on a 10-0 run to start the fourth quarter. Along the way, Floyd was called for a foul trying to block out after a 3-point try by Garner. And when he expressed his frustration verbally to the officlal, picked up his second technical, ending his night.
Understandable but not justifiable.
Following free throws by Delph and Garner, both coaches emptied their bench with 5:43 to play. The Conway subs outscored the Bryant subs 12-6 the rest of the game with the Hornets' scoring coming on 3-pointers by Tyler Gattin and Bo Stitch.
Renuard led the Hornets with 8 points, all in the first quarter.
Bryant will host Cabot on Tuesday, Feb. 17.
CONWAY 71, BRYANT 40
Score by quarters
BRYANT 13 8 13 6 — 40
Conway 17 21 13 20 — 71
HORNETS (7-16, 1-10) 40
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb. fls. pts.
o-d-t
Lairy 1-8 2-2 3-1 4 2 4
Parish 3-6 0-0 0-0 0 2 6
Benton 3-9 0-0 0-1 1 5 6
Floyd 2-8 1-2 3-0 3 5 6
Renuard 3-5 1-1 2-0 2 1 8
Prescott 1-1 0-1 0-2 2 1 2
Butzlaff 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Whitfield 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 2
Rayburn 0-0 0-2 0-1 1 1 0
Nossaman 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Stitch 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 3
Brown 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Gattin 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 3
H.Garner 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Team rebs. 0-2 2
Totals 16-44 4-8 8-7 15 18 40
WAMPUS CATS (18-3, 8-2) 71
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb. fls. pts.
o-d-t
Delph 5-8 5-5 0-5 5 1 17
McNeall 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 1 0
Purifoy 4-11 2-2 4-2 6 0 10
Schichtl 2-3 2-3 0-2 2 2 6
J.Garner 8-10 6-8 3-5 8 1 22
Moore 1-2 0-0 1-0 1 2 2
Fason 0-1 0-0 1-2 3 0 0
Jackson 2-2 0-0 1-0 1 1 4
Sims 0-0 2-2 0-1 1 1 2
Cox 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Kremer 1-3 0-0 1-0 1 0 2
Jones 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 2
Snider 1-1 0-0 0-1 1 0 2
Hannon 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Norris 1-1 0-0 0-1 1 0 2
Team rebs. 0-2 2
Totals: 26-45 17-20 11-22 33 9 71
Three point field goals: Bryant 4-20 (Floyd 1-6, Renuard 1-2, Stitch 1-2, Gattin 1-2, Lairy 0-4, Parish 0-2, Benton 0-2), Conway 2-8 (Delph 2-4, Purifoy 0-2, McNeall 0-1, Jones 0-1. Rebounds: Conway 11, Bryant 13. Technical fouls: Bryant, Floyd 2.
