Patience pays off the Finney, Fayetteville

Caleb Finney is like most of the Fayetteville players who into this season lacking much varsity playing experience. Finney, now a 6-foot-4 senior forward, was actually more than capable of contributing to the Purple Bulldogs during their 7A-West Conference championship run last season. Instead, he had to wait his turn. Last year's veteran posts Josh Breathitt, August Carlson and Drake Wymer earned most of the minutes, while Finney watched and learned. But he and the Fayetteville staff knew when this season began, the Purple'Dogs would actually have a secret weapon of sorts when Finney finally got his chance. "He did get thrown into the fire this year because our expectations for him were pretty high," Fayetteville coach Kyle Adams said. "He's been an answer for us and he fills a need for us inside. He's a big guy who can score and also defend, and Caleb's done a really good job so far. "The first three games he had a double-double. He does get in foul trouble from time to time because the guy he's guarding is usually bigger than him. But he's done a great job for us on and off the floor." Finney, who averages 9.5 points and a team-best 5.8 rebounds per game for Fayetteville (7-11, 2-4 7A-West) entering tonight's home game against Van Buren. He knew he would be counted on in a big way with the Purple'Dogs losing the majority of last year's lineup to graduation. But Finney accepted the challenge head on and expected big things from himself right away. "Last year going up against those guys, August and Josh and those guys, really prepared me for this year," Finney said. "I saw a really good guy (Tuesday) night in Carl Fitch (at Springdale) and I think I just keep getting better and I just have to keep working to help us get to the state tournament." Finney provides Fayetteville with its best inside scoring option, but also creates problems with his ability to slip away from the basket and take defenders out on the perimeter with him. The Bulldogs have other scoring options to go along Finney, including steady senior guard Tyler Roth and Brennon Lewis. "One thing people might not realize is he's one of our better perimeter shooters," Adams said. "People don't realize that and we use him a lot to pick and pop like what we had last year with Josh (Breathitt), and he's really answered that bell. "He had two or three 3's the other night against Har-Ber and those are things we expect from him. They're not a surprise to us and we're just happy he's with us." Fayetteville struggled early in the conference season. But after playing conference co-leader Springdale Har-Ber to overtime last Friday and putting up a convincing win at Springdale High on Tuesday, Finney sees the Purple'Dogs turning the corner. Now he expects his hard work waiting his turn in previous seasons will start to pay off as Fayetteville begins to make a run down the stretch. "We had some young guys coming in a we're starting to gel a little bit," Finney said. "The last two losses to Heritage and Har-Ber have been really close and we got a big win against Springdale the other night. Now we've got a good Van Buren team coming in Friday and it should be another challenge, but I think we're headed in the right direction for sure."

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PATIENCE PAYS OFF THE FINNEY, FAYETTEVILLE

VERNON TARVER

Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette | 1/27/2017

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Woods