Wonder Boys take top spot in GAC preseason poll

— The Arkansas Tech University men’s basketball team has been favored to win the inaugural season of men’s basketball in the Great American Conference. The Wonder Boys received seven of the nine first place votes in a poll voted on by the league’s head coaches, who were not allowed to vote for their own teams.

ATU, which finished the 2010-11 season with an overall record of 25-6, received one second-place vote in addition to its first-place votes for a total of 63 points, nine points ahead of second-place prediction Harding. ATU returns its leading scorer from last season, Johnie Davis, who averaged 16.3 points per game and shot 47 percent from the field and 38 percent from 3-point range.

Harding received one first place vote, four second-place votes and three third-place votes for a total of 54 points after finishing last season with an overall record of 25-5 and a conference championship in its last season as a member of the Gulf South Conference. The Bisons will look to Kirk Porter and Bradley Spencer to fill the void left by the team’s top three scorers from a year ago. Porter and Spencer both averaged 9.5 points per game in 2010-11.

Coming in for a close third in the preseason coaches’ poll is the University of Arkansas at Monticello. The Boll Weevils received one first-place vote, two second-place votes, three third-place votes, one fourth-place vote and one sixth-place vote for a total of 48 points. UAM finished the 2010-11 campaign with an overall record of 14-13. The team returns one of the region’s leading scorers from last year, L.A. Farmer, who finished the season with an average of 19 points per contest. UAM also returns Ricardo Hall and Sergio Crowe, who averaged 15.1 and 14.3 points per game last year.

Southwestern Oklahoma State University ranks fourth in the preseason poll with a total of 38 points after receiving at least one vote in all but two categories. The new-look SWOSU roster for 2011-12 features only four participants from a team that went 16-13 last season.

The final five teams of the2011-12 preseason poll are only separated by six poll points.

Southeastern Oklahoma State ranks sixth with 27 points, followed in order by Ouachita Baptist (26), East Central (24), Henderson State (23) and Southern Arkansas (21).

Southeastern Oklahoma State, Ouachita Baptist and Henderson State all begin their first season as a member of the Great American Conference with a first-year head coach.

Southeastern picked Kelly Green to lead its program on March 31. Green most recently amassed nearly 350 wins in 14 years as head coach at Arizona Western College. Dennis Nutt, a former NBA player and a longtime assistant and head coach at the NCAA Division I level, was named Ouachita Baptist’s head coach on May 17. Across the street from OBU, Henderson State turned to Doug Nichols to lead its program on March 29. Nichols was most recently the primary assistant coach at GAC member Arkansas Tech, a team he helped lead to the semifinals of the NCAA South Region Tournament.

The 2011-12 regular season tips off Nov. 11 and culminates Feb. 25. The inaugural GAC championship tournament is scheduled for March 1-4, 2012, in Bartlesville, Okla. at the Bruin Field house. Eight of the league’s nine teams will participate in that event to determine the league’s first-ever men’s basketball champion.

Preseason GAC favorite Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys

2010-2011 record: 25-6

Returning starters include: Johnie Davis, 16.3 points per game, 47

percent FG shooting, 38 percent 3-point shooting in 2010-2011 Other Arkansas schools

Harding, second place UA-Monticello, third place

Ouachita Baptist, seventh place Henderson State, ninth place Southern Arkansas, 10th place

River Valley Ozark, Pages 212 on 10/30/2011

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