NEWARK — Cedar Ridge’s Isaac Middlebrooks has seen a number of standout players throughout his career as a head basketball coach, but he admitted he’s never coached one quite like Austin Reaves.
“He’s the best to ever come out of Cedar Ridge,” the Timberwolves’ fourth-year coach said. “I coached his brother Spencer, who was a heck of a player, too, while he was here. But Austin can take his game to another level whenever he wants to. He has a certain type of ability that you just don’t see in many players, and I think he showed that with the kind of year he had.
“He was simply outstanding.”
Outstanding may not be a strong enough adjective when describing Reaves’ senior season. The 6-foot-5 guard led Cedar Ridge in just about every major statistical category and broke a number of state records while leading the Timberwolves to the Class 3A state championship.
For his efforts, Reaves has been named the Three Rivers Edition Boys Basketball Player of the Year.
“I thought I had a pretty good senior year,” Reaves said with a laugh. “But I couldn’t do anything without the other guys in the locker room. We all had one goal in mind, and that was to win a state championship.
“We didn’t really know what to expect coming into the season, but after our run in the Northeast Arkansas Tournament, we kind of thought we had a chance to win it. We just had to go out there and prove that we could do it.”
And Reaves did his part virtually every time he stepped on the floor. The Wichita State University commit averaged 32.5 points, 8.8 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game for Cedar Ridge, which won its final 30 games and finished the season 36-3 en route to its third state crown in the past four years. Reaves shot 56 percent from the field, including 42 percent from behind the 3-point line, and was a 78-percent shooter from the foul line, an area that stands out, considering he made 530 free throws.
“He carried us; there’s no question about it,” Middlebrooks said. “It didn’t matter who we played because he was going to do whatever it took to give us a chance to win. Teams would gear up to stop him, and he still went out and did his thing.
“A lot of people see the numbers that he put up but don’t realize he’s about as unselfish a player as you’re going to see. It just so happened that whenever he got going, teams weren’t really able to stop him.”
Reaves broke the state’s single-season record for points scored with 1,237. He tallied a season-high 73 points in a 117-115 triple overtime victory over Forrest City on Dec. 3 and had a three-day stretch later in the month when he scored 57, 49 and 56 points to lead the Timberwolves to that NEA Tournament title.
Reaves, a first-team All-Arkansas Preps selection, continued his dominant play in the state tournament, in which he averaged 43.3 points and shattered the record for most points scored in the event with 173. Joe Brasel of Jasper held the previous record with 146 in the 1960 tournament, but Reaves eclipsed that mark by the midway point of the first half in the Timberwolves’ 75-60 victory over Charleston in the title game. The two-time all-state pick finished the game with 43 points, including a finals record 21 free throws. Reaves also scored 57 points in an 86-59 victory over McGehee in the opening round.
“Everyone dreams of winning a state title in their senior year, and it wasn’t any different for me,” Reaves said. “We just started clicking, and we were fortunate enough to keep it going for most of the year. We knew we had to work hard, and everyone bought into that.
“And for a team that lost two starters from the previous year, that was huge because with such a tough schedule, we knew we’d have our work cut out for us.”
The fact that Reaves put up those gaudy numbers with an injured shoulder may be more impressive than anything he accomplished. He had surgery to repair the torn labrum in his left shoulder on March 23. Reaves, who had to have a similar procedure done to his left shoulder three years earlier, has played with the injury since his junior season after diving for a loose ball. He later learned that he’d dislocated his shoulder and played every game this season with a brace in order to keep the shoulder stable.
“It was just one of those things that happened, but he was going all out when he hurt it,” Middlebrooks said of Reaves. “That’s just the kind of player he is, though. He didn’t really start getting a lot of college attention until the last three months of the season, but we knew what we had in him all along.
“He played injured, and teams threw everything at him, but his body language never changed. He had that next-play mentality, and that’s what you want in a player.”
Reaves hopes he’ll be completely healed in time to participate in Wichita State’s exhibition tour in August, but just the idea of playing on a team that’s been an NCAA Tournament fixture over the past five years, including a Final Four appearance in 2013, has him anxious.
“I’m just really excited,” Reaves said. “I really can’t wait to get up there and learn coach [Gregg] Marshall’s system. For me, team success equals individual success, and Wichita State’s had a lot of success lately.
“Hopefully, I’ll be able to help keep that going. I want to have an impact once I get there.”