Air Force Falcons Basketball Preview
November 17th, 2009 | Air Force Academy Uncategorized | Posted by Mike Hoffman
Senior forward Grant Parker (AF photo)
Last season the wheels fell off for Coach Jeff Reynolds’ club. It ended the season on a 17-game losing streak before the Falcons shocked the entire Mountain West Conference by beating Colorado State in the first round of the conference tournament.
This will be a telling third season for Reynolds, a former assistant coach who took over the program when Jeff Bzdelik left to coach the University of Colorado. Bzdelik had led the Falcons to the NCAA Tournament in 2006 and the NIT semifinals in 2007. Air Force was hoping Reynolds could keep the program rolling, but it has been in decline ever since. In his first year the team fell to .500 in the conference, and last year it went 0-16 in Mountain West play.
Reynolds now has a full-blown rebuilding project on his hands. The Falcons will experience a youth movement as they lose their top three scorers and more than 50 percent of the offensive output from last year’s team. Not to say that’s necessarily a bad thing when you go winless in conference play, but it also means the other players didn’t have the chops to earn playing time.
The Falcons do return guard Evan Washington and forward Grant Parker, who both averaged six points per game last year. Parker, who stands 6 feet 8 inches tall, has an effective long-range shot for a big man. He shot 48 percent from behind the three-point line last year and exploded for a career-high 26 points in this year’s season opener against Western State.
Where the Falcons need to make the greatest strides, though, is on the boards. The team gave up 290 offensive rebounds last year while collecting only 211 of their own. Academy teams are typically at a height disadvantage due to the difficulties of recruiting blue-chip players, but rebounding has to become a mindset on this team.
Help down low, though, could be on the way. Freshman Taylor Broekhuis, a 6-10 center and Colorado Springs, Col., native, averaged 17.3 points, 11.5 rebounds and 4.9 blocks in his senior year of high school. Another Reynolds recruit, 6-7 freshman forward Zach Bohannon, averaged 15 points and 10 rebounds in high school.
This year will prove to be another tough one for the Falcons as it faces another stiff conference schedule, playing the likes of BYU, San Diego State and UNLV. If Reynolds wants to keep his job, he can’t go another season without a conference win and he has to show the athletic department he’s making progress with the team. Although it’s difficult, Bzdelik showed how to take a service academy team to the Big Dance. Reynolds needs to heed those lessons.
Predicted finish: 11-16 (3-13)
Team MVP: Grant Parker
Bold prediction: The Falcons are looking for a new coach at the end of the season. (Update: As a reader pointed out in an email this morning to Flightlines, the AD did give Reynolds an extension after winning that one conference game last season. However, if there is not a turnaround, AD Hans Meuh is going to look pretty bad for extending a coach who couldn’t win a conference game in season, and when you make your boss look bad, well, that’s never a good thing.)
Comments
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Scott Says:
November 18th, 2009 at 7:40 amCoach Bzdelik did not lead the Falcons to the tournament in 2004; that was Joe Scott. In fact, most of the team’s success during that period can be directly attributed to him and his recruits. Also, AD Hans Mueh seems to really like Coach Reynolds for some reason, reupping his contract after winning the play-in game during the conference tournament last season. Reynolds has at least has one or two more seasons regardless of the team’s performance. His performance the first year actually exceeded expectations.