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By Steve Carpenter
HCC Sports Information Director
Monday, October 1, 2007
Hutchinson Community College men’s basketball
coach Ryan Swanson goes out of his way to tell his players about Blue Dragon
tradition.
Immediately after Monday’s first practice for
the 2007-08 season at the Sports Arena, Swanson had legendary HCC head coach
Sam Butterfield address his players.
“They need to know there’s pressure to win
here,” Swanson said after the first workout of the season. “They need to
know it takes everybody’s best effort. They need to know people come at us.
I make them understand the tradition of Hutch basketball.
“Nobody knows the tradition like Sam
Butterfield and that’s why I introduced him to the team.”
The Blue Dragons return only two players and
one redshirt freshman from a 23-8 team that finished tied for
fourth in the
Jayhawk West and was eliminated in the first round of the Region VI
Tournament by Kansas City.
That loss still burns in the two players who
had to suffer through it – sophomore forward Ken Bowman and sophomore guard
Lamar Falley.
“It was intense to see all of those (NJCAA
Tournament) teams come in here,” Bowman said. “To see all of those people
here and not have Hutchinson playing, it really made us feel bad.”
Bowman averaged 8.7 points and was second on
the team in rebounding last season at 7.1 boards per game. He was a
43-percent shooter from the floor and 62 percent from the field. Falley, who
shared time at point guard last season will move over to shooting guard this
season. Falley averaged 8.5 points and was a 34.5-percent 3-point shooter
last season.
But where Swanson wants improvement and what
much of the first month of practice will be dedicated to is defense. HCC
allowed 75.6 points per game, which was way too much for HCC’s second-year
head coach.
“We want to be able to establish a defensive
identity,” Swanson said. “We want to put constant pressure defensively whether
it be full-court or in the half-court.
As fall practice begins for the Blue Dragons,
Swanson brings a bigger, faster group of players into camp. He expects this
team to be a much-better shooting team that his first group that
collectively shot only 44.1 percent from the field and 37 percent from
3-point range.
The only other player to go through the
program last season was redshirt freshman guard Antonio Weary.
Both Bowman and Falley said they have
something to prove.
“Last year we didn’t make it to Wichita and
that was really the downfall of our season because he had a great season to
that point,” Bowman said. “Our goal is to make it to Wichita and win a
region championship.”
“I think we have a much better team this
season,” Falley added.
One area Swanson hopes to be improved is at
the point where University of Oklahoma transfer Bobby Maze has transferred
to HCC.
Maze played in 22 games for OU last season as
a true freshman. He made six started, five of them coming in the final five
games of the season, averaging 18.6 minutes of playing time per game. For
the season he averaged 5.6 points, 1.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists.
With a full season to recruit an in-state
class, Swanson is very happy with his group of in-state freshmen. – Austin
Bond (Kansas City Piper), Blake Bales (Olathe East),
Derek Burgan (St. John), Koury Clayton (Wichita
East), Ryan Douvier (Newton) and Sam Edwards (Wichita East) make up the
in-state class. Also joining the Blue Dragons this season will be Hutchinson
high graduate Henry Rogers, who transferred back to HCC from Kansas
Wesleyan.
“If you’ve ever been around Kansas for long,
you know that you have to count on solid in-staters,” Swanson said. “They
give you depth. They give you accountability and that’s something that we
didn’t have last year and because of that, we weren’t able to play the style
we wanted to play last year.”
The Dragons will also have a lot more height
with 6-foot-10 Abdul Herrera, a University of Cincinnati transfer, 6-10
Canadian native Dobrivoje Mavrak and 6-5 Canadian Javari Williams.
The Blue Dragons will open the 2007-08 season
with the Quarterback Classic on Nov. 1 against Hamilton College.
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