Bullard Brag
Tomlin talks about his hopes for the season
Bobby Woodruff

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down and listen to Coach Ryan Tomlin talk about Bullard boys' basketball.

The following words are from Tomlin and his vision for basketball at Bullard and his comments about the members of the team:

The Bullard boys' basketball team is a very young team, consisting of five sophomores, two juniors, and four seniors.

We are a team that had some freshmen play last year in Daniel Howard, Josiah Rosebury and Lance Anding. They got some varsity time, with Lance earning honors as the Freshman of the Year in the district.

The other sophomores, Nikky Rumbelow and Brandon Beavers join this group from the junior varsity that went 27 and 1 on the year.

Juniors Charlie Moore and Jacob Whatley add experience to this group.

Jacob is a good shooter and Charlie is a tremendous athlete who will help us both on offense and defense. His presence in there is a big help to us.

As I said, we are a young team.

At this point we are 11 and 4. These guys play well together. Right now we are trying to find the right chemistry that we want on the floor.

Meaning that we want to find the best five players we want to start off with.

We also want to find out who are the best guys to come off the bench to give us a quick boost.

The good thing about this year is that we have a lot of depth.

We have guys who are pretty big, and who can guard in the post.

Right now we are going through an injury to Lance, and we hope that he heals quickly.

Lance has missed the past three games.

This is very frustrating for Lance as he keeps bugging me to death -- to let him get back in the game.

We want to take all precautions with Lance to be sure he is recovered before he gets back in the game.

Lance has been our leading scorer during this season -- so far at about 14 points per game.

A good thing about this team is that we have had almost five guys in double figures per game with Daniel Howard about 10 points per game, Austin Camp about 10 points Brandon Beavers about eight or nine points and Andrew Barron about eight or nine points.

That's pretty exciting to have that many players score points each game.

We have some quickness with these guys, along with some height. We had some success in winning the Wills Point Tournament and were able to compete against some 5A teams. Our schedule is pretty tough, and we set it that way because we felt the group we have can match tough competition.

Our guys know that they are going to have to work for each and every game. I believe that if you ask our players, they want to play the tough teams.

In our district we have one of the top teams in the state in Chapel Hill.

I really believe that we can play with them. I believe that we have a team that can go into the playoffs.

Our region has three or more teams that are tough and we need to be healthy and play up to our potential.

Our guys play well together, they can not stand to lose and that's a big thing that you can't coach in players.

These guys have a lot of heart. They love the game, they love to play and it bothers them to lose.

Daniel Howard is our guy that makes our defense go.

He defends against the point guard. He is very quick, great with his hands has great reaction and comes up with about five or six steals per game.

He gets most of his points off his steals and this really sparks our team.

Lance Anding is a good scorer and also a talented defender. He gets after it on both ends of the floor.

Nikky Rumbelow has been real steady for us.

We were really hoping that he would play a big role for us. He is a quiet kid; he doesn't say much.

But he is determined and focused, and he does what we want him to do as he is a very coachable player.

Josiah Rosebury is a tough player, he gets down there and likes bodily force. He likes contact; you must have players like Josiah on your team to be successful.

Brandon Beavers is another one of our sophomores who we are looking for to really produce down low in the post, both on offense and defense.

He is a first year varsity player so he is going against some experienced players and this would really make him a better player as we continue.

Brandon has had some great games this year with 18 points against Pine Tree who is a good team.

Austin Camp is a senior who has great past experience and playoff games with us.

We want Austin to be a leader for us.

He is a great shooter from the three-point line and handles the ball really well.

He is a smart player and very coachable.

Andrew Barron is another senior who plays in the post for us.

Andrew is a good defender who is a tough player and will work hard to bring down a rebound.

He likes to force his way inside and is a big help for us both on offense and defense.

Jacob Whatley is a great outside shooter who can come off the bench for us, and we look to him to shoot the three for us.

He works hard and is a valuable team member for us.

Eli Fullen is a senior who is a good role player for us and works hard to be a member of the team.

He is a very unselfish player for us.

Some of these guys don't get to play very much, but they know their role on this team and continue to work for the team.

Brandon Davis is the biggest player on the team at 6- 4, and he can use his size to come in to the game and guard any large dominate post man.

In our game against Spring Hill, Brandon came into the game and was able to help shut down a couple of big Spring Hill players.

Plus Brandon put some points on the scoreboard for us. Brandon can put his big body on other post players and keep them off the boards.

Brandon knows his role on the team and he works to help our team continue to be successful.

Overall we are excited about this year.

We are excited about what the future holds for Bullard basketball.

I am very pleased with the help from our other coaches. Clint Sadler and Donny Lee do a great job for me.

You have to have coaches who are not just "yes" people. Our coaches offer some things that I may not want to hear, but they are valuable to me and we all have the best interest for our team.

Hopefully we will continue to play hard.

This is one thing we want for our program.

When people think about Bullard basketball, we want them to know that they are going to have to play hard against us.

Bullard will not beat themselves. Bullard will be sound and will play with a lot of emotion and intensity and show they love to play the game.

This is what we want, we want our guys to have fun in this whole process of playing basketball.