Climbing from No. 14 to the NJCAA Division-I men’s basketball top 10, checking at No. 10, Barton Community College loves to run and gun.
Then-No. 19 Hutchinson find out the hard way in the Cougars’ most recent game last Wednesday, a 91-73 foot race at Kirkman Activity Center.
Barton guard Algie Key and swingman Carl Wallace set the tone for the up-tempo, fast-breaking style and their Cougars teammates followed their lead in a lopsided win that dropped perennial powerhouse Hutch, 14-5 overall, 1-4 Jayhawk West, out of the top 20 altogether and out of the conference race. Key scored 21 points and Wallace added 18 in the win.
“I think this year’s team is a little bit better in the half-court game than they were last year,” Barton head coach Craig Fletchall said. “But I still think it’s a contrasting style to most teams in our league and sometimes I think it’s tougher to prepare for a team that gets up and down the floor like this.
“There’s a hazard there where we can maybe go too fast at times. There’s been some games where we’ve had some wreckless turnovers we can’t have during the final month of the season. I think as long as they’re competing and playing hard, it’s a tempo they want to play.”
Barton (17-2, 3-2), which was idle on Saturday, sits all alone in third place in the West. It makes a difficult road trip today to take on an upstart and unranked Colby team that is currently in second place with a 5-1 record and 17-3 overall.
And the game plan won’t change for the Cougars, who plan to run, run and run some more.
After falling to 1-1 in West play, losing on the road to preseason favorite Seward County 82-65 on Jan. 7, Colby has rattled off four consecutive wins, beating Dodge City, Garden City, Butler and Hutch in succession.
“They’re an upper-division team and it’s not a fluke they’re in second place,” Fletchall said of Colby. “They’ve got nine sophomores and they’re pretty skilled at each position.
“They have not lost at home. We probably had our most demoralizing loss last year as team at Colby. We were up 20 at halftime and lost. It’s a long trip.”
Colby is led by point guard Jamie Adams and shooting guard Carson Konrade, coupled with 6-foot-11 polish import Roman Szymanski, a freshman center.
Konrade, a native of Spearville and a sophomore sharp-shooter who is bound for Fort Hays State University, is averaging a team-high 14.5 points. He has knocked down 38.9 percent of his 3-pointers (42 for 108).
Adams, who scored 30 points in a 73-67 win over Hutchinson on Saturday, is averaging 10.8 points and has dished out a team-high 86 assists.
Szymanski, who has a propensity to alter opponents’ shots with his height and wingspan, is averaging 4.7 points, 5.1 rebounds and has blocked 26 shots.