FAYETTEVILLE — Those who saw Isaiah Joe play basketball in high school know what to expect in college - a pure-shooting 3-point specialist who works extremely hard on his craft.
The 6-5, 167-pound Arkansas freshman and former Fort Smith Northside standout noted he shoots 600 shots a day outside of practice.
“I try to get up 600 a day on the machine,” Joe said. “I like to come up at night and put a lot of shots in. We have our trainers that like to work with us a lot and that is always helpful.”
Joe was on fire Friday night when he poured in a game-high 31 points to lead the Red team to a 105-82 win over the White before an estimated crowd of 7,500 at the annual intrasquad game.
He was 10-of-17 shooting overall, including 9-of-14 from 3-point range while also knocking down 2-of-3 free throws and added three assist and three rebounds.
“I look at it as it was a great game, but I still don't want to weigh myself on this game,” Joe said. “I want to look to the future so I can get prepared for the next game. It was a great game, like I said, but getting ready for the next game and getting ready with my teammates and getting better each day is what we're focused on.”
Joe’s effort, along with 24 points and 12 rebounds from 6-11, 233-pound sophomore center Daniel Gafford, who was 11-of-16 from the floor, and new point guard Jalen Harris’ 16 points, 10 assists and 5 rebounds powered the Red team to the easy win.
Joe hit 8 of his first 11 3-pointers in the game - including 5-of-8 in the opening half - before cooling off a bit late in the game.
“I was trying to find a bucket of cold water to pour on him (Joe) because he got a little hot out there,” Gafford said. “He was heating up the building. He was sucking the oxygen out of the building. It was crazy. He is going to be one aspects we need later on this season.”
Joe passed the credit on to his teammates on the Red squad, who had 22 assists.
“It felt great,” Joe said. “Just being able to know that my teammates were feeding me the ball and I was able to knock down the shots, I give them all the credit.”
Joe admitted he was a bit nervous for his first college game.
“Nerves is a part of all my games,” Joe said. “It’s that way with adrenaline pumping, but once you get out on the court and start playing, you don’t really focus on all that, like the crowd. You just play your game.”
Joe led Northside to a Class 7A state title while making a school-record 126 3-pointers as a junior and got them back into the championship game before losing to North Little Rock as a senior in a rematch of the 2017 championship game.
“He shot the ball well and those guys got it to him,” Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson said. “I thought Jalen Harris is a guy we talked about as a pass-first guard. I thought between him and Daniel and (sophomore) Gabe (Osabuohien), those guys did a good job of finding him.
“They (Red) ended up with 22 assists. He did his job spotting up and he’s got pretty good range, too. He had his stroke going on tonight and I thought our guys did a good job of getting it to him.”
Gafford thought the Red team came out slow at first, but got things going with its defense.
“Well, at first, we were sluggish on offense and not moving the ball and turning it over on like back-to-back possessions, so once we settled down we basically said, 'Let's execute some plays and move the ball more,'” Gafford said. “And once we got the right tempo going and played the right defense - because our defense leads to our offense - and once we got that together, everything just started flowing smoothly.
“Every time we played great defense, a great bucket came right after it and every time we moved the ball more smooth, a smooth bucket came right after that. All we have to do is slow it down and make sure we get our tempo right before we start going, like, the Fastest 40 and all that.”
Harris, a redshirt sophomore who had to sit out last season after transferring from New Mexico, constantly ran the floor during the game.
“He’s pretty quick with the ball,” Anderson said. “As he gets to know these guys, I think you’ll see him hopefully break down defenses and make nice passes that lead to layups. And he’s going to look for the big fella. That’s one thing about it, when you play with a guard like this … I really want our guys to be defensive-minded and I want us pushing the ball and running the floor.
“His pushes sometimes are faster than some guys’ passes. He’s putting so much pressure on the defense, so now we’ve just got to have guys get in the right spots.”
Gafford, one of the more athletic centers in college basketball, loves running the floor with Harris.
“It is good because running with a guy like that, he gets the ball up the floor and me - being faster than him - I can get the same speed as him,” Gafford said. “If I run the floor, he tells me that he is going to reward the big men for running. All the big men have to do is run the floor and we get easy buckets just like that.”
Gafford, junior Adrio Bailey (22 points) and Osabuohien (20 points, 8 rebounds) are the only three returning scholarship players from last season.
Joining Joe, Gafford, Harris and Osabuohein on the winning Red team was freshman Ibrahim Ali (6 points) and walk-ons Jonathan Holmes (6 points, 5 assists) and Emeka Obukwelu (2 points), who led Division III University of Texas-Tyler in scoring last season at 19.6 points per game.
Junior college transfer Mason Jones had 17 of his 22 points in the first half for the White team, which also featured Bailey and newcomers Desi Sills (16 points, 8 assists), Reggie Chaney (9 points, 6 rebounds), Ethan Henderson (5 points), Keyshawn Embery-Simpson (5 points) and new walk-on Ty Stevens (3).
“I thought Mason in the first half was on point,” Anderson said. “He played like he’s been playing in practice. In the second half he kind of disappeared.
"But we see some of the things he can bring to the table from an offensive standpoint. But as I told our guys, impress me with your defense. Obviously we’re going to have to be able to score. But I think he’s a guy that can knock down shots. He can put it on the floor and make nice passes.”
Sills also had four steals, four rebounds and two turnovers in addition to his 16 points and 8 assists.
“It’s just putting all the pieces together,” Anderson said. “I thought Desi had a pretty productive night. We’re seeing his toughness, his grit, ballhandling at times. He’s just got to take better care of the basketball. In this kind of game, it’s not going to happen. Desi had 8 assists, I think, and 4 steals. That’s pretty good for a freshman.”