Razorbacks prepare for final home game
FAYETTEVILLE - Through four decades plus four years of seeing various Arkansas Razorbacks senior classes play their final home competition there have been countless fun to watch and countless fun to be around and a special, rare group qualifying for both.
That rarity isn’t rare with this Arkansas basketball senior class Saturday playing its farewell Walton Arena game for Coach Mike Anderson against Georgia.
It’s 100 percent good on all counts with this Arkansas senior class of Moses Kingsley, Manny Watkins and Dusty Hannahs.
It would be hard for any Razorbacks senior class of any sport entirely improving like this class.
Consider when then raw Nigerian center Kingsley, and then walk-on guard Watkins arrived at Walton as freshmen for Anderson in 2013 then Hannahs arriving in 2014 redshirting as a junior transfer from Texas Tech.
Kingsley averaged just 11.5 and 10.5 minutes and 4.0 and 3.6 points and 3.2 and 2.5 rebounds backing up All-American Bobby Portis for two years.
With Portis gone pro, Kingsley blossomed.
He averaged 15.6 points and 9.3 rebounds and blocking 76 shots last season, an improvement so vast that going into this 2016-2017 season More depth on a better team has reduced Kingsley’s numbers, 11.9 points, 7.7 rebounds while blocking 78 shots, but not his impact, Anderson said.
He’s impacted off the court, too. The SEC on Thursday for the second consecutive year named Kingsley as Arkansas’ representative on the All-Service team of SEC players performing good works in their communities.
Watkins logged but 27 total minutes for eight games as a freshman on Arkansas’ NIT team of 2013-2014.
The next year he became the defensive supersub of Arkansas’ 27-9 team that went two rounds into the NCAA Tournament, was sixth last year and starts now.
Hannahs was known strictly for his 3-point shot in his two seasons averaging 6.7 and 7.7 points at Texas Tech.
Now he’s a complete scorer outside and inside driving to get fouled and averaging 16.7 points last year and a team-leading 14.5 points now on a better team.
If Hannahs totals a minimum 33 points through Saturday and whatever postseason games the Hogs log in the SEC Tournament and thereafter, Hannahs will join UA Sports Hall of Honor inductees Todd Day, Scotty Thurman and Martin Terry and certain to be eventual inductee Portis ascending the Razorbacks 1,000-points club in just two years.
As good as they have played, the trio even more excels leading and representing the Razorbacks with class and good humor while still all serious business on the court.
All three shared laughs at their going into Senior Day press conference Thursday.
Manny Watkins, moving to Fayetteville while in high school when his dad, assistant coach Melvin Watkins, the former head coach at Texas A&M and assistant at Missouri, moved with the Anderson staff from Missouri to Arkansas, and Hannahs, a Little Rock native and Pulaski Academy grad spoke of the Razorbacks’ impact growing up in Arkansas. Kingsley spoke next. “Growing up in Arkansas it was very, very…” the Hannahs and Watkins guffaws interrupted as Kingsley smiled.
“Coming over from Nigeria and going to high school in Mississippi, it's been a journey,” Kingsley said. “I’m very, very glad I'm going to be finishing up here at the University of Arkansas. The last four years have been amazing.”
Kingsley did spend time in Arkansas before his Razorbacks days. He played AAU ball in Little Rock with Portis, Watkins and Hannahs.
“They’ve really been like brothers to me,” Kingsley said.
Hannahs, bypassed by major colleges out of high school until Texas Tech at the last, thought the AAU company he kept with Portis, Kingsley and Archie Goodwin, the former Kentucky freshman become NBA player, surely would deflect some interest on him.
““I’d come home and tell my friends, 'Man, I played really good at this tournament. The recruiting's about to amp up,” Hannahs said. “Then this D-III college would call me and be like, 'Hey, we've identified you as a top 50 guy for us.' I'd be like, 'Ah, OK. So that’s how it is.’ I thought I still could play it at a high level. Texas Tech offered and then I got back here and it's been awesome.”
Watkins was asked Thursday if he had any goals to fulfill.
“Not sure if I’m going to win the Wooden Award, but I still have a few games left,” Watkins said tongue in cheek of the college basketball equivalent to college football’s Heisman Trophy. “That was a goal of mine. I have to do a lot to do that one still. But when I’m done, I’m going to look back and all I’m going to be able to do is smile and think about how much fun and how perfect it was.”
Three graduating loving their school and their school loving them back is as good as it gets.