Siloam Springs' Morgan Miller helped the Lady Panthers win two games last week and stay in the hunt for a conference championship in their inaugural season in the 7A/6A-West.
Miller scored 17 points in Friday's 64-53 win against Rogers Heritage. Last Tuesday, Miller scored 12 points in a 60-38 win at Van Buren.
“She’s done a good job for us, offensively,” Siloam Springs head coach Brett Sanders said. “She’s become a playmaker; penetrate and dish, and look for a shot.”
In the win against Van Buren, Miller had six points in a 17-0 run to end the first half after the Pointerettes crept within 20-17.
More than scoring, though, the junior has become a leader with few upper classmen on the team.
“She’s had to take a different role this year,” Sanders said. “She’s moved to point guard the last few games and has had to be a floor leader. She’s doing a good job there.”
Before moving to the point, Miller was more of a shooting guard. She had 23 points in a 64-54 loss to Rogers and followed that up with 18 points the next night out in a 51-40 win against Springdale. She leads the team in scoring with 100 points in seven conference games.
At A Glance
That Figures
28.9 - average margin of victory in seven conference game by the Fayetteville Bulldogs
8 - quarters in conference play in which Fayetteville Bulldogs have scored at least 20 points
2 - game lead for Fayetteville Bulldogs at halfway point of conference play
The 5-9 Miller, though, was needed more at the point to run the team rather than be a scorer.
“I like her size being on the point when we’re being pressed,” Sanders said. “She’s okay with anything. She’s all about the team. She turns down shots sometimes I wished she’d take. She’s a teammate.”
Fayetteville’s Manuale Watkins leads the Fayetteville Bulldogs in scoring with 112 points in seven conference games.
Watkins scored 17 points in Friday’s 62-48 win against Bentonville after scoring 20 points last Tuesday in an 81-55 win against Har-Ber.
His biggest contribution of the week, however, may have been on the defensive end of the basketball court.
In Friday’s win over Bentonville, Tigers’ star Nick Smith had 10 points in the first quarter to stake his team to an early lead against the Bulldogs.
Watkins was then instructed to guard Smith, limiting him to six points the rest of the way.
“Manny is a jack-of-all-trades,” Fayetteville head coach Kyle Adams said. “He can score if we need scoring, he handles the ball a lot for us, he rebounds, but probably the most under-estimated things he does is his defense. He can really guard when he has to. He can guard a post, and he can guard a forward. He’s very versatile in that area.”
Watkins and Smith played a lot together on the summer circuit, which may be helped with his defensive effort against Smith.
“Manny is pretty physical, and he’s played against Nick and they played together some on the summer team,” Adams said. “Manny probably knows him a little bit better. I think Manny just got a little physical with him. I’m not sure he did anything different. We started Caleb Waitsman on him, and he’s about the same size as Nick. Caleb guarded him extremely well, but Nick just made some shots. We gave him a different look and thought we could make it harder on him catching the ball. It worked out for us.”
All Benton County
The first half of the conference round-robin sets up an exciting race for the girls championship with three Benton County schools battling it out.
The Bentonville Lady Tigers are 6-1, losing only to Rogers, but at home. Four of the wins were on the road, meaning the Lady Tigers will have four home dates in the final seven conference games.
Taylor Lee scored 32 points last week in wins against Springdale and Fayetteville and leads the Lady Tigers in scoring with 89 points in seven conference games. Bentonville also has the luxury of four other players scoring six points or more during conference games.
Rogers High and Heritage sit just a game back at 5-2. They both have four home dates in the back seven as well.
Rogers hosts both Bentonville and Heritage in the final half. Bentonville is at Rogers on Feb. 12 while Hertage visits on Feb. 19.
Bentonville hosts Heritage on Feb. 8.
If those three teams take turns knocking them off, Har-Ber can make a move after going 4-3 in the first half. The Lady Wildcats, though, have four roads trip left, including all three of the top teams.
Bulldogs Leading
The Fayetteville Bulldogs breezed through the first half of the round robin, going 7-0.
The Bulldogs won their seven conference games by an average of 28.9 points per game.
Friday, though, Fayetteville beat Bentonville, 62-48. It was the only one of seven conference games in which the Bulldogs did not win by at least 20 points.
“People don’t know it, but there are a lot of good basketball teams up here,” Adams said. “Bentonville is a very talented team, Springdale was ahead of us at the half, Har-Ber played us a good game, we just happened to shoot the ball really well that night. Against Bentonville, we played one of our better games for four quarters.”
Fayetteville’s trio of Tyler McCullough, Jawan Smith and Manuale Watkins combined for 39.4 points per game.
Fayetteville has a two-game lead over Springdale High and Siloam Springs, which are both 5-2.
Now, the challenge for the Bulldogs is not to become complacent.
“We’ve been fighting that all year long,” Adams said. “We have so many kids, and all of them are seniors. We’re just trying to take it one game at a time.”
Adams points back to the undefeated state championship team of 2009 that finished 30-0 as an example.
“I talk to them a lot about that team that went undefeated,” Adams said. “I was an assistant under coach Gebhart. I told that one of the unique things that team had that I haven’t seen in many teams is that they were able really focus on just the next game and not look forward to anything beyond that. These guys have done a pretty good job of that. Our preseason schedule was so tough that I’m not sure they fear anybody; they respect them. They’ve done a good job of getting themselves ready to play.”
Fayetteville are scheduled to play both of those teams on consecutive nights, traveling to Siloam Springs on Feb. 12 and hosting Springdale on Feb. 15.
Springdale hosts Siloam Springs on Feb. 8.
Night Off
No conference games will be play on Tuesday night.
The date is the designated makeup night for any games cancelled because of winter weather. No games were cancelled in January with the area dodging the winter storm that rolled through most of the rest of the state two weeks ago and cancelled many games especially around Little Rock.
Lady Pathers Sitting Good
Siloam Springs Lady Panthers went through the first half of the round robin with a 3-4 mark, but are ready for the back half of the schedule.
“Hopefully, we’re playing a little bit better basketball,” Sanders said. “I think we will be able to compete better with the teams that beat us the first round.”
Sanders didn’t really know what to think being knew to the league what to expect.
“After the first few ball games, I was a little worried,” Sanders said. “The girls are progressing and hopefully we’ll continue progressing through the next seven ball games before we go to the playoffs.”
Siloam Springs is assured of playing in the 6A state tournament regardless of where the Lady Panthers wind up in the 7A/6A-West standings since all teams in 6A go to the state tournament in Greenwood.
“We started out playing a whole lot of kids, running five in and five out, trying to keep their interest up from the bend standpoint,” Sanders said. “That helped morale in practice also. We have great practice players, the kids are really good. Being young and energetic has really helped us.”
The Arkansas playoff system in basketball is much different than Oklahoma where Sanders came from. In Oklahoma, post-season basketball is a grueling three-week grind spread out over five sites leading to the state tournament
“Being from Oklahoma where you have to win nine games just to get the state tournament, it is quite different scenario than here,” Sanders said. “I didn’t know until I moved over here that I knew the Arkansas playoff system was like this. It’s different. I don’t know whether I like it or not. I guess you can say you make the state tournament. Hopefully, we can get in there and challenge some teams.”
In Oklahoma, small schools go to a three-team district, two of which advance to a regional tournament before an area tournament leading up to an eight-team state tournament. The district, regional and area tournaments is a three-weekend long combination of double elimination.
“It’s very difficult to the make the state tournament in small classes in Oklahoma,” Sanders said. “It’s double-elimination all the way through until the state tournament, and there are so many more schools in Oklahoma that you have to compete against to just get to the state tournament. You really feel blessed if you get there.”
7A/6A-WEST LEADERS
Boys
TEAM OFFENSE
TEAM G PTS AVG
Fayetteville 7 458 65.4
Bentonville 7 413 59.0
Springdale Har-Ber 7 407 58.1
Springdale High 7 402 57.4
Siloam Springs 7 393 56.1
Van Buren 7 339 48.4
Rogers Heritage 7 304 43.4
Rogers High 7 284 40.6
TEAM DEFENSE
TEAM G PTS AVG
Fayetteville 7 256 36.6
Van Buren 7 341 48.7
Springdale High 7 350 50.0
Siloam Springs 7 372 53.1
Bentonville 7 377 53.9
Rogers Heritage 7 428 61.1
Rogers High 7 429 61.3
Springdale Har-Ber 7 447 63.9
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
PLAYER, SCHOOL G PTS AVG
Payton Henson, Siloam Springs 7 175 25.0
Nick Smith, Bentonville 7 151 21.6
Manuale Watkins, Fayetteville 7 112 16.0
Dashaun Stark, Springdale High 7 101 14.4
Austin Heard, Bentonville 7 101 14.4
Alex Scharlou, Springdale High 7 98 14.0
Quinton Ray, Van Buren 7 87 12.4
Jawan Smith, Fayetteville 7 87 12.4
Alex Rice, Springdale Har-Ber 7 84 12.0
Tyler McCullough, Fayetteville 7 77 11.0
Justin Malott, Springdale High 7 75 10.7
Reece Goddard, Siloam Springs 7 71 10.1
Dylan Gray, Siloam Springs 7 71 10.1
Tereke Eckwood, Springdale High 7 71 10.1
Crist Olsen, Rogers Heritage 7 67 9.6
Hayden Greenway, Rogers Heritage 7 66 9.4
Austin Haggard, Bentonville 7 66 9.4
Ryan Pearson, Van Buren 7 61 8.7
Mitchell Smith, Van Buren 7 61 8.7
Austin Fox, Springdale Har-Ber 7 60 8.6
Zach Jones, Rogers High 7 59 8.4
Caleb Waitsman, Fayetteville 7 58 8.3
Nick Pagel, Van Buren 7 55 7.9
Brandon Buccheri, Springdale Har-Ber 7 53 7.6
Keifer Holt, Rogers High 7 49 7.0
Luke Fryauf, Rogers Heritage 7 48 6.9
Jason Harms, Van Buren 7 47 6.7
Ricky Jones, Springdale Har-Ber 7 45 6.4
Tyler Tutt, Springdale High 7 38 5.4
Josiah Wymer, Springdale High 7 32 4.6
Girls
TEAM OFFENSE
TEAM G PTS AVG
Rogers High 7 373 53.3
Rogers Heritage 7 364 52.0
Bentonville 7 363 51.9
Siloam Springs 7 356 50.9
Springdale Har-Ber 7 330 47.1
Fayetteville 7 308 44.0
Springdale High 7 295 42.1
Van Buren 7 237 33.9
TEAM DEFENSE
TEAM G PTS AVG
Fayetteville 7 290 41.4
Bentonville 7 298 42.6
Rogers Heritage 7 301 43.0
Springdale Har-Ber 7 307 43.9
Rogers High 7 322 46.0
Siloam Springs 7 356 50.9
Springdale High 7 371 53.0
Van Buren 7 381 54.4
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
PLAYER, SCHOOL G PTS AVG
Taylor Strickland, Rogers High 7 167 23.9
Ashley Ward, Rogers Heritage 7 103 14.7
Morgan Miller, Siloam Springs 7 100 14.3
Brittany Jurgens, Springdale High 7 97 13.9
Baily Cameron, Siloam Springs 7 89 12.7
Taylor Lee, Bentonville 7 89 12.7
Brittany Ward, Rogers Heritage 7 85 12.1
Maria Santillana, Van Buren 7 84 12.0
Kaylee Sheppard, Van Buren 7 74 10.6
Bailey Schalk, Springdale Har-Ber 7 67 9.6
Emilie Jobst, Rogers Heritage 7 62 8.9
Tayleah Neal, Springdale Har-Ber 7 61 8.7
Ellen Lundy, Rogers Heritage 7 55 7.9
Kindal Coleman, Bentonville 7 55 7.9
McKinzie James, Rogers High 7 54 7.7
Caylee Wright, Springdale Har-Ber 7 53 7.6
Bailey Owens, Siloam Springs 7 52 7.4
Samantha Weber, Springdale Har-Ber 7 52 7.4
Aubrey Edie, Fayetteville 7 51 7.3
Javunda Daniels, Springdale High 7 51 7.3
Cassandra Trexler, Rogers High 7 50 7.1
Rashaun Casey, Bentonville 7 50 7.1
Karen Perez, Springdale High 7 49 7.0
Hannah Hawley, Rogers High 7 47 6.7
Mayse Pippin, Siloam Springs 7 44 6.3
Julia Garrard, Bentonville 7 44 6.3
Brooke Mabeus, Bentonville 7 43 6.1
Vanessa Matlock, Fayetteville 7 41 5.9
Jaylah Prude, Fayetteville 7 37 5.3
Marleeya Montgomery, Springdale Har-Ber 7 36 5.1
Alexa Howard, Fayetteville 7 35 5.0
Ellie Breden, Fayetteville 7 33 4.7
Baiyinnah Taylor, Springdale High 7 33 4.7