Fayetteville junior point guard Calli Berna, right, drives past junior guard Clair Childers during practice Thursday in Fayetteville.
Photo by Andy Shupe
FAYETTEVILLE — A year ago, Fayetteville had such a balanced offense that coach Bobby Smith didn’t care who shot the basketball.
He had a roster filled with players who could penetrate to the basket, hit the outside shot and spread the ball around so that one player wasn’t counted on to do the bulk of the scoring.
That was evident when the Lady Bulldogs had five players score in double figures in a 72-61 win over North Little Rock in the Class 7A State Championship Game, becoming the first team since 1989 to go undefeated in the state’s largest classification.
But when Fayetteville kicks off its title defense later this month, there might not be as much sharing going on — at least at first. After all, it takes time to find a new group of scorers.
“Obviously, we’re going to have to get production from fewer (players) than we did last year, where we really didn’t care who shot it or where (on the floor) because we had some kids that could really shoot it and score,” Smith said.
“We’ve had to narrow our focus, and this is certainly a team that’s not going to be as good in November as it’s going to be in February because there’s a lot of things that I can already see that we’re going to end up throwing out.”
Not everything has changed, though.
While the Lady Bulldogs lost five players from last year’s title team who are now playing college basketball, their expectations have remained the same. They want to repeat as state champions and perhaps go undefeated again.
And despite not being as deep or as big as last season, Fayetteville still expects to run the fast break, attack the basket and get to the point where the scoring is shared amongst several players and not just one or two stars.
“We did lose some height, but really this year we’re trying to focus on rebounding because we’re just going to have to be so much more aggressive on the boards,” said senior Sierra Shipley, one of Fayetteville’s two returning starters.
“We were aggressive last year, and this year it’s just going to have to continue to be that way. We’re a fast-paced team; I think that stayed the same.”
Smith said this year’s team is practically “brand new,” and all the lineup changes have forced him to work in practice to see what parts of his offensive and defensive schemes must be tweaked.
Smith admitted the Lady Bulldogs will look different on offense because of their lack of size, and he has concerns about how they’ll defend in the paint because of their noticable size disadvantage.
“We’re not the strongest team out there. Most teams that we’re going to play are going to be taller than us,” said Calli Berna, a 5-foot-9 junior who scored 11 points in the state championship game.
“We’re just going to have to be physical, and we’re just going to have to do the fundamentals right and block out.”
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