Dwayne Brunson of the Barton Community College men’s basketball team won’t be making the trip to El Dorado on Saturday for the scheduled 7:30 p.m. Jayhawk West tilt with Butler.
Then again, the 6-foot-7 power forward, the Cougars’ second-leading scorer, top rebounder and top shot blocker, might be in uniform.
But then again, who knows?
“We’re going to sit down with him and talk about some things,” said Barton head coach Craig Fletchall of Brunson, who sat out Wednesday’s home game against Garden City, an 82-72 BCC victory.
The Cougars, who are 15-2 overall, 1-2 in conference play, ranked No. 15 in the latest NJCAA Division-I poll, are right back in the thick of things in league play.
Butler (7-9, 1-1) is coming off a 62-61 road win over No. 12-ranked Hutchinson on Wednesday night at the Sports Arena.
“Butler’s proven that it can go into Hutch and win against a team that is ranked in the top 20,” Fletchall said. “They’re clearly the Butler that it always is and they’re extremely well-coached and a talented team.”
Back to Brunson, he was serving a mandatory one-game suspension after he and Dodge City’s James Milton were ejected during the first half of last Saturday’s game in Dodge.
Whether the sophomore from Queens, N.Y., plays on Saturday remains to be seen, although Barton proved against Garden that it could win without one of the conference’s top players in the fold.
Yet, over the long haul of the season, one has to wonder if the undersized Cougars can endure the rigors without one of their tallest and most-talented players.
Against Garden City, 6-3 freshman guard Algie Key, 6-4 swingman Carl Wallace and 6-4 forward Darius Hill sparked Barton with a feverish, up-tempo pace that had the Broncbusters playing from behind throughout.
Key, the team’s leading scorer, had a game-high 21 points against the Busters. Hill, a sophomore, scored 17 points, making 5 of 6 field goals and 7 of 10 free throws, while hauling in a team-high eight rebounds.
And then there was Wallace, a slashing Philadelphia, Pa., product, who had his best game in a Cougars uniform with 15 points, seven assists, six rebounds and five steals.
Another bright spot was the play of freshman guard Kurt Walker. The Topeka Hayden product nailed 3 of 4 3-pointers and made both of his free throws for a career-high 11 points.
“That was huge for us,” Fletchall said.