RiverHawks Short of Goal, But Season Was Success
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Larry Gipson’s Northeastern State RiverHawks 2009-10 basketball team fell short of its goal of reaching the South Central Regional, but the 13th-year head coach said the squad “met the expectations” of the coaching staff.
“Looking back over the year, our basketball team did meet the expectations of the coaching staff, although we would liked to have gotten a little further down the road,” said Gipson, who posted his 500th college victory as a head coach.
“I really can’t pin-point a game we should have won, that would have made a difference. Maybe early in the season there was a game. However, we got better and better as the year progressed.”
The RiverHawks finished the year with a 20-9 season record and No. 9 South Central Regional ranking, just missing a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
“I think we put ourselves in a good position to reach the playoffs. But we put ourselves in some unfortunate circumstances that we just couldn’t overcome late in the year,” said Gipson.
One of those was the late season injury to Marlon Burnett in a game against Southwestern where he was able to play just six minutes and did not score. That played a big factor in the NSU loss and Gipson added, “We just didn’t have quite enough depth to get past Midwestern.” The loss cost the RiverHawks a possible at-large spot in postseason play
Midwestern defeated the RiverHawks twice during the season -- the first by a single point in the final one-second of play at Wichita Falls and then again in the Lone Star Conference semifinals -- before winning the Lone Star Conference Tournament and the South Central Regional Tournament en route to a spot in the Elite Eight in Springfield, Mass.
“If I had to pick one thing that hurt us it was our depth,” said Gipson. “We had four tremendous contributors in Jason Jones, Dominique Gaines, Marlon Burnett and Antoine Branch.”
Two of the four are graduating, Jones and Burnett, both of whom, according to Gipson, will be “difficult to replace.”
“We had a real difficulty in getting a fifth, sixth and seventh person to contribute regularly,” said Gipson. “That’s our focus right now in our recruiting, trying to build a team that has more depth.”
Jones, Branch and Burnett provided the offensive firepower early in the season. However, it was Gaines, a junior college All-American, who joined the team in mid-December, that helped the RiverHawks to hit its offensive stride.
“I think what Dominique did was bring a level of talent that was equal to any in our league,” said Gipson. “And it gave us arguably the best inside-outside punch with Dominique and Jason Jones.
“You look at our perimeter play with Marlon and Antoine we had as good a perimeter group as the elite teams in our region,” said Gipson.
But Gipson must fill a huge hole in the middle of the RiverHawks motion offense with the loss of Jones, who was named the LSC North Division Defensive Player of the Year, LSC first team pick and a first team South Central Regional selection.
Jones also became the first Northeastern State player to play in the NABC Elite All-Star Basketball game, which will be played in Springfield, Mass on March 26.
“I think Jason Jones in many respects is ir-replaceable.,” said Gipson. “He’s the best defensive rebounder that I’ve coached here in my 13 years. He’s the most versatile big man that we’ve ever had in terms of his ability to play both inside and outside.
“I think it was evident that he was first team all-region and playing in the Elite NABC All-Star game. He’s one of the best 20 players in Division II.”
But Gipson also acknowledge he has to find a replacement for Burnett, who also had an outstanding year and was named to the LSC team as an honorable mention selection.
“Marlon is a really strong perimeter player that is hard to find,” said Gipson, adding “Marlon was very good at both ends of the floor. Those kind of guys are rare. We are just going to try and do the best we can to get a number of bodies to replace those guys.”
The veteran coach said he is also looking for some leadership from the returnees for next season’s squad.
“We have to get some guys to grow up,” said Gipson. “It’s obvious that Antoine (Branch) and Dominique (Gaines) have the ability to be excellent players at this level but they need to grow and mature as people.
“We need to find some people within our program like Ethan Anderson Jessie Scroggins, and Ryan Keese need to step up. We have two guys, Ryan Keese and, D. Willis who red-shirted this year need to step up and accept the responsibility to be good players.”
Now in the offseason, the priority is finding a big man for the middle, as Gipson said “hopefully more than one. Any big man out there has a good opportunity to come to Northeastern State because we just don’t have anybody in the program right now. We’ll be young next season, but hopefully talented,” said Gipson.
