Cardinal Hoops Coach Looks Ahead

STRATEGIZES TO BEAT BIGGER FOES

Farmington High School basketball coach Beau Thompson looks forward to this season, which tips-off Nov. 17 against Springdale.

The Cardinals look to build upon the successes of last season which saw two players in particular come out of their shells as both skilled scorers and excellent passers.

“We allow both Matt Wilson and Matt Thomas ultimate freedom on the offensive end of the court,” Thompson explained.

Farmington runs what’s called a “4-Out, 1-In Motion Offense.” It is a wise design and sound strategy for Thompson as his boys will be out-manned in the “Size” department in virtually every one of their conference games this season.

The Cardinals do not have a player on their roster listed any taller than 6’4”. This is a big deal–pun intended.

Almost every other team in the 5A conference will sport at least one, if not two or three players standing 6’ 7” or taller—with many teams the Cardinals will face having players pushing 6’10”.

Enter coach Thompson’s motion strategy…

This genre of offense was most recently made popular by Villanova Head Basketball Coach Jay Wright, who has been able to beat teams like Kansas, Duke and North Carolina all while being undersized and out- recruited. His team made it to the Final Four just a few years ago running this offense.

Coach Thompson’s stud guards Wilson and Thomas, who stand 6’ 2” and 6’ 4” respectively, will be able to peruse the perimeter with other sharp-shooters, senior Jarrod Osnes (5’8” tall) and junior Cade Fenton ( 6’ 3” tall).

“Both Osnes and Fenton can hit open shots–and when you’ve got guys like Wilson and Thomas commanding attention, those two guys will get plenty of open looks.”

Coach likes to say that both of his “Matts” have the ability to score from, “All three quadrants on the court.” They can score off the block when they get mis-matched with an inferior or smaller defender; they can also score off the dribble, creating their own mid-range jump shot; lastly, both Matt Wilson and Matt Thomas can hit the ball from three-point range with high efficiency.

“I want to give those two the room needed to allow them to create their own ‘ good’ shots, but preferably create an environment where they can get their teammates —like Osnes and Fenton — ‘great’ shots.

“Both ‘ Matts’ will get double and triple- teamed pretty often this season.” Thompson said.

Coach goes onto to explain that he’s so confident in the Cardinals’ ability to put the ball in the hoop, that his biggest concerns come elsewhere.

“Offense isn’t really my concern at all, though. We are going to have to fight for every stop and every rebound.”

When asked what his plans would be going up against larger players every game night, coach replied, “We are going to have to play team defense. We are going to have to rebound as a team.”

Thompson has some tricks up his sleeve on the defensive end of the court to aid in those endeavors. “We are still going to play man-to-man defense about 80 percent of the time, I’d say… but we are also going to throw-out our version of a 3-2 defense to mix things up.”

The Syracuse-crafted 3-2 zone features three guards up top with two “post” players down low. Since Farmington doesn’t have a true “shot-blocker” or “rim-protector” down low, this type of defense will help them quite a bit.

“Not a lot of teams here in the south are used to seeing a 3-2 zone; everyone plays man-to-man down here.”

Coach Thompson hopes this wrinkle in their game plan will help.

Last year the Cardinals finished with four wins and eight losses in conference play. “And we were dang happy to get those four wins, too,” Coach said. “We just weren’t big enough to get stops when we had to have them on the defensive end of the floor.”

Thompson recalls one game last season against Vilonia, “They started three kids who were 6’ 8” or bigger,” he said. “At one point, I just sent the biggest, strongest kids we had on our bench out there to try and get a stop and a rebound. The ability to score or being skilled on the offensive end didn’t mean anything at that point as we simply couldn’t even get the ball. We just had to get a possession some way, somehow.”

Farmington had won five of the last six conference titles in 4A before being bumped-up to 5A prior to last season.

“In the last 30 years, I think we had four division 1 players come out of our 4A conference.”

“This season alone there will be four or five D-1 players in our 5A conference… It’s just a different ballgame altogether.”

“All five of Little Rock Christian’s starters will earn scholarships to play ball, and Maumelle sends out three or four college-caliber players too. The jump from 4A-5A is unreal.”

Coach will be leaning on his star scorers Matt Wilson and Matt Thomas, as well as his strategies on both ends of the court to upset some of the larger teams this season.