Editorial

This is a request to you High Point basketball fans to back away from the ledge, take a deep breath, and realize while this season has been the worst in recent history, the future is as bright as it has ever been for the Panthers.
With the Panthers holding a record of 9-18 and 4-12 in the Big South, it is easy to look at all the negatives. As fans, however, you need to take a step back and look at the storm that led to the struggles this season. First and foremost Arizona Reid is no longer on the court; any time you lose one of the best players in conference history and statistically one of the top players in the nation, not to mention the heart and soul of the team, you are going to take a step backwards. Lost in the hype over Reid, the departure of point guard Mike Jefferson was huge. Jefferson finished the season 4th in the nation in assists per game and provided stability at the most important position on the court. In contrast, only one player has started every game for the Panthers this season, freshman point guard David Singleton. No matter if you are High Point Duke or UNC making the transition from one of the top point guards in the nation to a freshman is not going to be easy and it has showed as Singleton averages nearly 4 turnovers a game.
Reid and Jefferson weren’t the only two important pieces to leave the High Point program. Bart Lundy’s top two assistants both left for head coaching jobs. Don Burgess is the head coach at Bridgewater College, and Josh Schertz is the head man at Lincoln Memorial University.
Most teams would take a step back with those losses. Even with a nucleus of upperclassmen, it would be difficult to have continued success. Toss in the fact that the Panthers are the 2nd youngest team in the nation with only three upperclassmen, only one of whom is a senior (who doesn’t see the court much at that) and the Panthers were due for a long season.
The future is bright, however; the Panthers have six freshmen and two guys red-shirting. Nick Barbour, Steadman Short and Singleton have combined for 57 starts this season. Sophomores David Campbell, Ibrahim Appaih, Jourdan Morris, and Earnest Bridges have combined for 26 starts. Sixty percent of starts this season have come from underclassmen.
If there is one definite reason to be excited about the future of Panther basketball, just look at what Barbour has done over the last seven games. After being inserted back into the starting line-up against VMI on Jan 24, Barbour has averaged 25.4 points per game, including performances of 32 against Coastal Carolina and 31 in a home win over Winthrop. The victory over the Eagles gave the Panthers their first ever season sweep over the much-hated Eagles. Barbour, a known scorer out of high school, chose the Panthers after only being offered a walk-on spot at Virginia Tech. He struggled early while coming off the bench, battling injuries, and only playing around 20 minutes a game, but has gained confidence in himself and earned the confidence of Coach Lundy as his minutes have increased.
Next season the Panthers will also have a couple of solid seniors. Eugene Harris has struggled finding his grove this season but has proven in the past that he is a very capable shooter and shut-down defender on the perimeter. Down low the Panthers will have the Big South’s leading shot blocker Cruz Daniels back. Daniels who is the favorite to win the Big South Defensive Player of the year this season is having his best season of his career so far averaging 7 points, 7 rebounds and nearly 3 blocks per game.
Head coach Bart Lundy will also be looking to rebound next season as this year will go down as his first losing season. Lundy feels that this season has been humbling and has made him a better coach, “As a coach I have never been through a losing season and first of all I is a very humbling experience but also it has been rewarding and presented different challenges than I have ever faced. I have been forced to stay very positive and use a different style of play than I have in the past. We traditionally have been all man to man but we have been forced to play the majority of our games in a zone this year because it gave us a better chance to win. This is one example of many things that have happened this season that have made me a better coach. The biggest thing is that I know I never want to experience this again.
Improvements are already starting to show for the Panthers who have won four of six. The team is maturing as a group and is becoming more unselfish and willing to sacrifice one another for the good of the team. According the shooting guard Eugene Harris, “great things are starting to be done.”
These are just some of the reasons to believe that the future is as bright as the morning sun. “I believe we have pieces in our program to be a dominant Big South team. I expect that these hard times will pay huge dividends in the future and we will see these young players become the stars of this league and High Point University become the team to beat year in and year out,” said Lundy.