Guilford College set for stretch drive in ODAC men’s hoops

Part of the issue is that three teams immediately ahead of Guilford College are tied for second at 7-1. The Quakers are 6-2 after beating Mary Washington, 72-59, on Wednesday night at Ragan-Brown Field House. They’re 13-4 overall, just one win less than the four teams ahead of them.

“We’ve made a lot of progress. I think we’ve gotten better,” said Guilford College men’s basketball coach Tom Palombo. “That’s the big thing. We’ve improved since the beginning, and I think that’s what you look for every year, that there’s at least incremental improvement.”

The Quakers are coming off a year that, after they went out in the first round of the ODAC tournament last season, were chosen to host a NCAA Division III sectional. They ran the table, winning four games to advance to the DIII Final Four. It was there that they were reacquainted with ODAC foe Hampden-Sydney and fell in the semifinals, 62-57.

That team was led by Tyler Dearman, whose last-second shot against Christopher Newport helped the Quakers earn their bid for another national championship. Dearman was supported all last season by Julius Burch, Caleb Parrish, Gabe and Luke Proctor and Rob Littlejohn.

“People laugh and think I’m joking … Those guys coached the team. Those guys ran the show,” Palombo said. of Dearman and Burch. “They ran it on the court, they ran it in the locker room, they ran it off the court. I was along for the ride with them, and it was great. But those guys ran the show … “

Dearman, Burch and Littlejohn are gone, but a mixture of returning players and transfers has helped the Quakers maintain their level of success.

“We have a lot of new guys into the equation, and it takes time for them to kind of grasp some of the stuff that we try to do,” Palombo said. “I think they guys that have been here have been the leaders of that, and then just trying to coach each other and get each other along to that point … Again, those guys playing with each other, as time goes through, I think we’ve improved.”

Chase Ellis, a transfer from Berry College, is the team’s third leading scorer at 10 points an outing. Ellis scored 10 points for Berry in its 87-70 loss to the Quakers in the first round of the national tournament. Gabe Proctor is a 42% shooter from 3-point range who’s second in scoring at 12 points per game.

Maybe the most interesting contributor to the cause is Nick Farrar, who leads the Quakers at 17 points and nearly seven rebounds per game. The 6-foot-7 Farrar spent three previous seasons at UNC Wilmington, College of Charleston and NC State. Before that, he was a high school teammate of Luke Proctor, Gabe’s brother. The Proctors convinced him Guilford College would make a nice place to show his skills, and he’s come through without showing any signs of his Division I background. He was recently named the ODAC Player of the Week.

“He understood coming in. We had the conversation that you’re goimg to work for everything. You’re just like everybody else,” Palombo said. “You’ve got to rebound. You’ve got to guard, you’ve got to do all these things, and if you don’t do them at a high level, things won’t go your way. So, he understood that coming in, but he’s handled it really well.”

The Quakers have won five of their last six games, with the only blemish a loss to Virginia Wesleyan, the team that knocked them out of the ODAC tournament in the opening round last season. There are eight ODAC games left in the regular season, with four of them at Ragan-Brown. Palombo is looking for some consistency, and his focus is on hitting the boards.

“We’ve shown flashes of being really good and some flashes of not being good, and that’s been our big focus,” he said. “Our number one thing is we’ve got to rebound it better on both ends of the floor.”