Tag Archives: high school basketball

Day 3 – The 38th annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic

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Arkansas State signee R’Chauan King wins MVP

Delta Digital News Service

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023

Brayden Morse | Sports Editor

JONESBORO, Ark. – Arkansas State signee and Bartlett Bulldog center, R’Chaun King, won the Most Valuable Player Award of the 38th Annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic, as Bartlett defeated the Rossview Hawks 74-56 in the championship game on Saturday night at Don Riggs Hurricane Gymnasium.

King expressed his thoughts on winning the tournament and MVP in his future college town.

“It feels great. It feels like home already. I’m ready to get down here and get going,” King said.

King scored 15 points in the championship game. 

Bartlett’s R’Chaun King (25) plays against Rossview during the playoffs of the 38th annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic on Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023.

As for the third and fourth place finishers, the Fayetteville Bulldogs beat the Jonesboro Golden Hurricane 59-56.

Jonesboro fought hard once again but came up short in the end. With less than two minutes left in the game, Golden Hurricane guard Chris Stacy shot a three-pointer and-one to minimize Fayetteville’s lead by two, but it was not enough to come back and win.

Jonesboro head coach Wes Swift shared his thoughts on Stacy’s shot late in the game.

“It was huge. I love the fact that he wants to shoot that shot. He’s not scared of that moment and that’s what I talked to him about,” Swift said.

“It was huge. I love the fact that he wants to shoot that shot. He’s not scared of that moment and that’s what I talked to him about,”

Jonesboro head coach Wes Swift

Stacy finished with 14 points while guard CJ Larry led the team with 18 points.

Coach Swift also expressed his thoughts on the weak areas of the team that need to be fixed moving forward, after being down 36-28 at halftime.

“Starting a game. I thought the first half was not a very good half for us. It snowballed off yesterday. I didn’t think we were good defensively yesterday. We weren’t communicating, we were getting lost on screens, getting lost in defensive transitions and the first half of this game looked just like it,” Swift said.

For the fifth and sixth place finishers, the Nettleton Raiders defeated the West Memphis Blue Devils 57-53.

With a minute and a half left in the game, Nettleton drew a foul and made both free-throws to tie the game 53-53. 

West Memphis ended up shooting their own free-throws but missed both, while the Raiders scored four more points in the final seconds to win.

Nettleton head coach Bubba Deaton shared the importance of drawing fouls late in the game to tie the game and eventually win. 

“It was huge. We made free-throws late which we haven’t done in the past. We’ll take this one and to be 2-1 in this tournament is huge. We’re happy about it,” Deaton said. 

Raider guard Taylor Smith led the team with 18 points in the win. 

For the seventh and eighth place finishers, the Cedar Ridge Timberwolves beat the Osceola Seminoles 63-56.

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Brayden Morse

Brayden Morse is a multimedia journalism major in the School of Media and Journalism at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

NOTE: Feature Photo shows Bartlett’s R’Chaun King (25) playing against Rossview during the playoffs of the 38th annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic on Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023.

Day 2 – The 38th annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic

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Rossview Hawks defeat the Golden Hurricane, 54-52

Delta Digital News Service

Friday, Dec. 1, 2023

Brayden Morse | Sports Editor

JONESBORO, Ark. – The Rossview Hawks (Rossview, TN) defeated the Jonesboro Golden Hurricane 54-52 on Friday night at Don Riggs Hurricane Gymnasium, moving on to the championship game against the Bartlett Bulldogs (Bartlett, TN) in the 38th Annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic.

The championship game will be on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.

Bartlett defeated the Fayetteville Bulldogs 59-44, resulting in Jonesboro playing Fayetteville on Saturday at 4 p.m for third place in the tournament.

Bartlett center and Arkansas State signee R’Chaun King scored 13 points in the win.

Jonesboro head coach Wes Swift explained where his team is at and things they need to improve on after the result of their loss to Rossview.

“This is a team that has to get a lot better. We had a lot of self-inflicted wounds tonight. We had a double-team on the ball on the sideline that was split. That’s unacceptable. In a trap you don’t foul and you don’t split and they got an and-one. If you don’t clean that stuff up, you’re going to lose a lot of close games,” Swift said.

“This is a team that has to get a lot better. We had a lot of self-inflicted wounds tonight. We had a double-team on the ball on the sideline that was split. That’s unacceptable. In a trap you don’t foul and you don’t split and they got an and-one. If you don’t clean that stuff up, you’re going to lose a lot of close games,”

Jonesboro head coach Wes Swift

It was a back-and-forth game, while Jonesboro led 28-23 at halftime. Coach Swift feels like his defense was the main concern in the loss. 

“We’re more concerned on the defensive end. When you’re up by nine points during the game and the crowd is going crazy, from that point on, I thought we played some really badbasketball,” Swift said. 

Despite the loss, Jonesboro had two players with double-digit points. Luke Baltz led the team with 13 points and three, three-pointers.

Baltz also made all four of his free-throws. CJ Larry was right behind Baltz in scoring with 11 points.

Coach Swift also discussed the mentality heading into day three of the tournament.

“We knew whether we were playing at 4 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. (On Saturday), we were going to be a decisive underdog. I think these (Bartlett and Rossview) are arguably the two best teams in the tournament. We better pick ourselves up off the mat or we could get beat badly tomorrow,” Swift said. 

The Nettleton Raiders defeated the Marked Tree Indians 71-45. The West Memphis Blue Devils beat the Osceola Seminoles 56-48.

Nettleton will face West Memphis on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. for fifth place in the tournament, while Osceola plays Cedar Ridge on Saturday at 1 p.m. for seventh place. 

Marked Tree filled in for Cedar Ridge against Nettleton, but Cedar Ridge will be back for the last day of the tournament. 

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Brayden Morse

Brayden Morse is a multimedia journalism major in the School of Media and Journalism at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. He can be reached at brayden.morse@smail.astate.edu.

NOTE: Feature photo shows Arkansas State signee signee R’Chaun King of Bartlett.

Day 1 – The 38th annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic

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Golden Hurricane defeats Cedar Ridge Timberwolves, 61-27

Delta Digital News Service

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023

Brayden Morse | Sports Editor

JONESBORO, Ark. – Day one of the 38th annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic is complete, with wins from Jonesboro, Rossview, Bartlett and Fayetteville on Thursday night at Don Riggs Hurricane Gymnasium to move on to the winner’s bracket.

Cedar Ridge’s Kyle Provence (3) tries to stop Jonesboro guard Caleb Chew (15) during the first round of the 38th annual Barry Pruitt Hurricane Classic basketball tournament in Jonesboro, Thursday, November 30, 2023. Photo by Atsuki Ohbuchi

The Jonesboro Golden Hurricane defeated the Cedar Ridge Timberwolves 61-27. 

Jonesboro guard Chris Stacy led the team in scoring with 14 points, and led the team with three, three-pointers in the third quarter. Two of the three-pointers were on back-to-back possessions to increase the Golden Hurricanes’ lead.

Jonesboro head coach Wes Swift shared his thoughts on Stacy’s performance.

“He’s a knock down shooter. We need him to stretch the floor. He played a nice role in that third quarter,” Swift said.

The score was 23-14 at halftime, with the Golden Hurricane leading. Coach Swift felt like the score was too close of a margin and needed to play better on both sides of the ball.

“With the score at halftime, we can work on the offense against the one-three-one. We didn’t have a lot of points at halftime and they (Cedar Ridge) do a really good job on their one-three-one. We wanted to play inside out and they did a good job of allowing us to get the ball in the paint,” Swift said. 

“With the score at halftime, we can work on the offense against the one-three-one. We didn’t have a lot of points at halftime and they (Cedar Ridge) do a really good job on their one-three-one. We wanted to play inside out and they did a good job of allowing us to get the ball in the paint,”

Jonesboro head coach Wes Swift

Swift also had some comments about his defense in the first half.

“We didn’t press and we thought we could press them. We felt like we needed to, to get some easy buckets and try to stretch that lead out a little bit. I thought we had a really good third quarter once we turned the heat up a little bit,” Swift said. 

The Golden Hurricane play the Rossview Hawks (Rossview, TN) on Friday night at 7 p.m. while Cedar Ridge plays the Nettleton Raiders on Friday at 4 p.m.

The Hawks defeated the Nettleton Raiders 54-53, as the Raiders shot a buzzer-beater three-pointer and hoped for a foul for an and-one.

Nettleton fought hard all game, while being down by eight points with two minutes left in the game and coming back. The Raiders would of course minimize that lead with a couple three-pointers and fouls, but failed to make all of their free-throws. 

Nettleton head coach Bubba Deaton expressed his thoughts on the loss and some positive and negative takeaways.

“We did some good things. We’ve got a lot of things to improve on. We didn’t play very well in the first half offensively. Didn’t get stops in the second half. To be down eight with two minutes left and give ourselves a chance, shows some grit. Probably should’ve gone to the press a little earlier. We shared the ball and we missed some shots that we normally take,” Deaton said. 

The Bartlett Bulldogs (Bartlett, TN) defeated the Osceola Seminoles 78-34. Bartlett guard and Arkansas State signee R’Chaun King scored nine points in the win.

The Fayetteville Bulldogs beat the West Memphis Blue Devils 71-43. The Bulldogs will play Bartlett on Friday night at 8:30 p.m. Osceola will play West Memphis on Friday at 5:30 p.m.

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Brayden Morse

Brayden Morse is a multimedia journalism major in the School of Media and Journalism at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. He can be reached at brayden.morse@smail.astate.edu.

Note: Photos by DDNS Staff Photographer Atsuki Ohbuchi