Arkansas team hoops camp draws major response

Arkansas assistant coach Matt Zimmerman leads a drill Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015, during practice in Bud Walton Arena.

— There was a lot of basketball action at Bud Walton Arena this weekend as Arkansas hosted programs from several states at its annual high school team camp.

Camp director and Razorback director of basketball operations Matt Zimmerman, who once brought his Wonderview team to the camp, was beaming during the event.

“I was once a high school basketball coach and I loved to take my teams to team camp,” Zimmerman said. “Hopefully your kids are playing some club (AAU) basketball and doing all that and that helps them as a player. But nothing helps your team more than you team being together and playing basketball. That’s why team camps are so beneficial.”

Fort Smith Northside senior shooting guard and Arkansas commit Isaiah Joe (6-4, 165) was the headliner of some 300-plus players on hand.

There were 30-plus teams that participated in the camp, which provided a laid-back atmosphere, but still a competitive one, Zimmerman said.

“You still want to win, but there is not the same type of pressure,” Zimmerman said “If a team loses in team camp, it doesn’t go on your record in the regular season, it doesn’t go on the coach’s overall record so you will see coaches in a more laid back atmosphere, but they are still coaching hard because they want to develop their talent and good habits. I love team camp.”

Arkansas will not have its annual Elite Camp this year, instead adapting to work with younger players.

“We added some more day camps for our youth to help grow our outreach to the youngsters and we had an overnight camp that had the best numbers we have had in five or six years,” Zimmerman said.

He believes the youth, overnight and team camps that Arkansas has hosted this month are great exposure for the school and program.

“That probably helps grow your love for the Razorbacks just as did for me as you fall in love with the school even more,” Zimmerman said. “You get to see what you see on TV all the time - beautiful Bud Walton Arena, which was built back in 1993.

“You probably have a lot of kids who walked in here today and said ‘Wow, this is a big place.’ We get a lot of local teams, but we also get teams from Oklahoma and Kansas and other states as well as teams from other parts of Arkansas.

The teams had a great opportunity to get in plenty off competition during the event.

“Most coaches will say that they are fine with three or four games in a day, but we do longer games here,” Zimmerman said. “A lot of camps have 12 or 15 minutes halves. We do 18-minute halves so you play 36 minutes, which a normal high school game is four quarters of 8 minutes so 32 minutes.

“Normally our teams will get five games in a day. Normally we have had a three-day camp, but we moved it to a two-day one this week. You can come for both days or just come Friday or Saturday.”

Some teams will play all comers while others want to avoid schools they will see during conference season.

“Coach Will Bartlett and myself sit down and work out the match ups,” Zimmerman said. “You have some coaches who say ‘I want to play my biggest rival in camp,’ while you have others that don’t want to play anybody in our conference during the summer.”

The team camp works in conjunction with a referee camp, which allows the officials to develop as well.

“Referees are important for our camp,” Zimmerman said. “The officials association here locally comes in and really helps us. There is such a big difference in having three real licensed Arkansas high school referees on the court. It makes it feel like a real high school Friday night basketball game in February.”