Bear Down Wildcats

Campbell transfer Cedric Henderson excited to play 'fun basketball' with Arizona Wildcats

Sometimes late at night in the heart of North Carolina, when he wasn’t playing basketball or working toward a degree in information technology and security at Campbell University, Cedric Henderson Jr. would punch up a little late–night West Coast college hoops.

On the evening of Thursday, Feb. 3, he was particularly entranced.

In a key moment during their Pac-12 championship run last season, the Arizona Wildcats were avenging an earlier loss to UCLA in a Top-10 matchup before a sold-out crowd at McKale Center and nationwide ESPN audience. The Wildcats shot 48.0%, had five different players sink 3-pointers and held the preseason league favorites to just 38.9% from the field.

Arizona won 76-66. It was a good time for the home team, and its fans.

“I watched them against UCLA — I watched their pace, and their swagger. They were out on the court having fun,” Henderson said. “It was nothing but fun. Everybody was smiling. Everybody’s laughing. Everybody’s screaming or jumping up and down. It’s just fun basketball.”

Four months later, the Wildcats offered Henderson a chance to become part of it and they didn’t need long for an answer. A grad transfer who is finishing up his Campbell degree this month, Henderson visited Tucson early last week and committed to the Wildcats shortly afterward.

UA staffers showed him videos of their style of play, confirming what he saw that night in February, and Henderson was sold.

“Honestly, the reason I went there was that I fell in love with the offense, and the pedigree of the program,” Henderson said. “It’s hard to beat a team like that, especially with a coach like Coach (Tommy) Lloyd, who’s putting guys in the league at same positions as me. He plays a lot of wings and has a very guard-friendly offense. They play at a pace that I’ve always wanted to play at.”

Basically, the opposite pace. While Arizona ranked ninth nationally in Kenpom’s adjusted tempo rankings last season, Campbell ranked No. 345 out of 358 Division I teams.

But there is a common thread to both offenses that Henderson is known for: In a Princeton-style offense at Campbell that featured loads of back cuts, Henderson sharpened his cutting and shooting abilities, averaging 14.0 points and 5.6 rebounds last season while shooting 38.4% from 3-point range and 53.8% from 2.

“Something I kind of learned at Campbell was cutting,” Henderson said. “It’s very much a part of my game. The difference now is that I will be playing more in ball screens and playing with better guys. So the elevation of it is very big.”

While moving from a team that went .500 in the Big South to the defending Pac-12 champions is a big jump, Henderson also has reason to believe he’s ready for it.

A 6-foot-6 wing who was a second-team all-Big South pick in 2020-21 before picking up honorable mention honors last season, Henderson had high-major programs such as Arizona, Texas Tech, NC State and South Carolina pursuing him as a transfer this spring.

He’s also son of a 1993 McDonald’s All-American, Cedric Henderson, who went on to play at the University of Memphis and in the NBA before becoming, well, dad.

Cedric Jr. said his dad came with him on his visit to Arizona last week but never tries to persuade him on his decisions.

“More than anything, he makes sure he rationalizes everything that I do,” Cedric Jr. said. “He’s really, really neutral on all the grounds. He’s the little guy on your shoulder that says, ‘Hey, if you do this, this might be better. But if you really want to do that, go for it.’ ”

So Cedric Jr. made decisions, as a late-bloomer out of high school who decided to play a year of junior college ball in order to get better college options, then winding up the Freshman of the Year among Tennessee’s junior colleges in 2018-19.

After that season, Henderson headed for Campbell as a sophomore in 2019-20, thanks to a long relationship with a Camels assistant coach, and said that move “really worked out for me” as he gained strength and confidence over his three-year career there.


By his senior season in 2021-22, Henderson had a chance to directly prove himself against an elite team, collecting 18 points and 11 rebounds in the Camels’ 67-56 loss at Duke on Nov. 13 last season.

Growing up in the basketball hotbed of Memphis, playing in heated high school matchups that sometimes dripped with talent, ensured he wasn’t intimidated by Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium crowd, either.

“Memphis is a crazy basketball place,” Henderson said. “People are running on the courts, they’re yelling at you. I’ve always had a student section. Going to Campbell was very different because there was no student section. There was a decent crowd, but it was nothing compared to what Duke had.

“I was so hyped because I was like `There’s gonna be fans here. There’s gonna be a crowd. There’s gonna be noise.’ It was exciting.”

As Henderson saw on ESPN that night last February, McKale Center can get pretty hyped, too. The difference is, next season, all that noise will be in support of Henderson, not against.

Somebody sign up for the free trial to commercial appeal dot com (que?) and post the recent Henderson article
https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/ ... 968804002/

Edit: fuck it, I'll do it

How the son of an ex-Memphis basketball star became the transfer portal's test case

Cedric Henderson Jr. was surprised when Arizona called. He was surprised when all of them called – Texas Tech, North Carolina State, Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Kansas State and several more.

He had put his name into the NCAA’s transfer portal after two successful seasons playing basketball at Campbell University in the Big South Conference, not knowing which schools might be interested in him. Not knowing whether he would finally get the recruitment that never materialized when he was playing at Briarcrest Christian in high school, or at Southwest Tennessee Community College for his father.

"Everybody dreams of playing for Duke, or North Carolina, or UCLA, or Arizona,” Henderson said. “It’s that college feel everybody dreams of."

Henderson announced last week that he’s headed to Arizona as a graduate transfer, a development that placed him right in the middle of a debate that has raged among college sports fans, coaches and administrators alike for the past few years, but never more so than this offseason now that name, image and likeness has been infused into the equation.

Does the increased freedom to transfer without having to sit out a year actually do more good than bad for college sports?

The transfer portal and the ability to be a graduate transfer will allow Henderson to play at a high major school like he wanted to all along. It’s a reward for a basketball journey that was more complicated than the one taken by his father, former East High School McDonald’s All-American and Memphis Tigers star Cedric Henderson Sr.

No Division I school wanted Henderson Jr. out of high school. Few wanted him after one year of junior college basketball. This offseason, they were lining up for him.

But the way the transfer portal is being used, the way it has become so heavily relied upon to replenish rosters, is exacerbating the problems Henderson initially ran into during his recruitment out of high school. It’s going to contribute to the lack of continuity some lament in this new landscape.

The three-star recruits, the ones who need a couple years of seasoning to be an impact player, they are being ignored by high major schools like never before.

"There are a lot of kids that are going to be under-recruited, wind up at mid-majors and then they’re going to end up transferring,” ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg explained. “Coaches aren’t going to sign high school guys early unless you’re an elite prospect that has the potential to have an impact, because if you’re not, and you’re going to sit, or your role is going to be limited, you’re going to end up transferring anyways."

It’s becoming a vicious cycle, in addition to an overdue avenue for players to switch schools just like their coaches.

Memphis, for instance, completely went away from recruiting high school prospects, with Penny Hardaway electing to exclusively restock his roster through the transfer portal this offseason. The Tigers have landed three transfers so far, including reigning American Athletic Conference player of the year Kendric Davis from SMU.

Davis, Greenberg pointed out, is one of the few players in the portal this year who can be classified as a star. Most players, he noted, are “guys who fill a need” as opposed to becoming the face of a new program.

The latter distinction likely applies to Henderson, a 6-foot-6 wing who averaged 14 points and 5.6 rebounds while shooting 38% from 3-point range this past season at Campbell. He said Memphis never contacted him during this process, but that “of course” he would have considered playing for the Tigers like his father once did because "it's home."

Henderson Jr., perhaps because of the roundabout way he landed at a college basketball powerhouse, seems to understand the perils and possibilities of what he just undertook.

The transfer portal is “good for guys who are trying to go to a better conference, or a new coach comes in and they don’t know and don’t trust him,” he said. “But then it’s also bad for those guys who think they’re better than what they are and transfer somewhere else just because.”

What category he falls into will be determined this season.

Henderson had been given feedback that he had two options to eventually fulfill his goal of playing professional basketball. He could lead Campbell to a conference title and earn player of the year honors, or he could go to a bigger conference, with better competition and more visibility.

He chose Arizona, just like he chose Campbell a few years ago even though some schools recruiting him at the time told him he should opt for another year of junior college seasoning.

He chose a path that wouldn’t have been possible without the freedom of the transfer portal.

He chose what felt like a dream not all that long ago.

"Just knowing that all the work I put in wasn’t for nothing is huge to me," Henderson said. "It pays off, especially guys who have the talent and have the skill set and they just get overlooked because they’re in the wrong spot or at the wrong time."

In judging the transfer portal, isn’t that the point? It’s about time these players got that choice.

Not sure why they shoehorned in the transfer portal discussion on a guy who is a grad transfer and therefore would have always been able to transfer without sitting, but ignoring that there's some nice stuff in there from Henderson.

I want to see Kerr, Ramey, Larsson, Henderson and Tubelis lineups.

In fact I think there's a good possibility that's the closing lineup in a tight game.

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 6:29 pm I want to see Kerr, Ramey, Larsson, Henderson and Tubelis lineups.

In fact I think there's a good possibility that's the closing lineup in a tight game.

The kind of line-up that would kill us but for some reason we can never seem to run well.

I think the trouble would be that none of those guys are very good rebounders (Kriisa and Ramey are poor but that's expected at their position, Larsson and Henderson are good for wings but not noteworthy or great, Tubelis was top ten in rebounding percentage in the conference but that might be him getting his own misses at the rim).

FWIW: I'm a bigger fan of Ballo than most, I think he's going to surprise a lot of people with how well he plays, and I think Veesaar is a lottery pick (if not this season then the next). So it's tough for me to buy leaving both on the bench.

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 6:29 pm I want to see Kerr, Ramey, Larsson, Henderson and Tubelis lineups.

In fact I think there's a good possibility that's the closing lineup in a tight game.

Nah, post defense will be included in every closing lineup in a tight game. Playing Tubelis at the 5 is the antithesis of that.

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 8:40 pm

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 6:29 pm I want to see Kerr, Ramey, Larsson, Henderson and Tubelis lineups.

In fact I think there's a good possibility that's the closing lineup in a tight game.

Nah, post defense will be included in every closing lineup in a tight game. Playing Tubelis at the 5 is the antithesis of that.

Teams are going to force switches and/or bring out the bigs to the perimeter, in late tight games that could be costly and will likely cost us at least a couple games. Those bigs are going to be on skates, maybe Ballo is the only capable one of being decent.

I know the reality is that we'll be playing twin towers almost exclusively but it's going to hurt us by making us slower.

And we're going to be in more close games because this team isn't as good as last year's.

On the other side of the ball having 2 non shooters who can't spread out a defense out there clogging the lanes for a team who doesn't have any players who can create their shot will be horrible.

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 10:44 am

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 8:40 pm

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 6:29 pm I want to see Kerr, Ramey, Larsson, Henderson and Tubelis lineups.

In fact I think there's a good possibility that's the closing lineup in a tight game.

Nah, post defense will be included in every closing lineup in a tight game. Playing Tubelis at the 5 is the antithesis of that.

Teams are going to force switches and/or bring out the bigs to the perimeter, in late tight games that could be costly and will likely cost us at least a couple games. Those bigs are going to be on skates, maybe Ballo is the only capable one of being decent.

I know the reality is that we'll be playing twin towers almost exclusively but it's going to hurt us by making us slower.

And we're going to be in more close games because this team isn't as good as last year's.

On the other side of the ball having 2 non shooters who can't spread out a defense out there clogging the lanes for a team who doesn't have any players who can create their shot will be horrible.

Among our rotation players only Ballo is a non-shooter. Tueblis hasn't shown good three point shooting (yet) but he shot long twos at 43% - that's a really good shot for him (and Arizona) that still stretches the floor.

I've got concerns about Ballo's lateral mobility as well as Tubelis's lack of physicality with regard to their ability to be plus defenders both on the interior and perimeter. Veesaar should develop into a plus defender on both levels given his length, mobility, and motor. But taking Ballo off the floor and playing Tubelis at the five does a lot more harm to our defense than it helps. Hopefully by the time it matters most, we have Veesaar to close out games next to Tubelis or Ballo as a stopper.

Lastly, I don't buy that we don't have guys who can get a bucket this year. I think the deep dive on the Synergy stats shows both Larsson and Henderson can get buckets driving off a pick (they're both top 10% in the nation), practically everyone outside of Kerr can get buckets on cuts, and we'll have at least five high quality three point shooters (Kerr, Larsson, Ramey, Henderson, Bal) with the possibility of 7 (Tubelis and Veesaar) to go with two starting guards who excel at hitting the open man out of the pick and roll.

I suppose I take a less pessimistic view of our roster for next season.