FAYETTEVILLE — The last time Drew Pember was a member of a basketball team that played the University of Arkansas at Walton Arena, he only got on Nolan Richardson Court for warmups.
Pember was a Tennessee freshman and remained on the bench as the Volunteers lost 86-69 at Arkansas on Feb. 26, 2020.
Tonight, Pember will be back at Walton Arena with North Carolina-Asheville (8-4) to face the No. 10 Razorbacks (10-1). Tipoff is 8 p.m. on the SEC Network.
Instead of warming the bench, Pember will be the focal point of Arkansas’ scouting report.
Pember, a 6-10 senior who transferred from Tennessee to UNCA last season, has become a star with the Bulldogs. He was the Big South’s Defensive Player of the Year and a first-team all-conference pick as a junior and the Preseason Player of the Year for this season.
“Drew’s just not a good player at our level, he’s one of the best players in the country,” UNCA Coach Mike Morrell said. “He’s very unique in terms of his size and skills. He can check a lot of boxes.”
Pember is averaging 19.7 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.9 blocked shots and 2.3 assists per game. He’s shooting 50% (69 of 138) from the field, including 42.2% on three-pointers (19 of 45), and 84% on free throws (79-94). His 79 made free throws lead the nation.
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“Pember, especially offensively, is having an absolutely phenomenal year,” Arkansas Coach Eric Musselman said. “He presents a lot of problems.”
After Pember helped Knoxville Bearden High School win the Tennessee Class AAA championship as a senior, the dream of being a key player for the hometown college team never materialized.
In two seasons at Tennessee, Pember averaged 4.8 minutes in 32 games — he played two minutes without any other stats in Tennessee’s 82-61 victory over Arkansas in Knoxville as a freshman — and averaged 1.0 points and 0.8 rebounds.
As a sophomore, Pember played 28 minutes in 10 games and scored 2 points.
“I didn’t get a chance to play much at Tennessee during my time and I just wanted a chance to play more,” Pember told the Asheville Citizen Times. “I decided to put my name in the portal to see what would happen.”
UNCA not only offered Pember the chance to play, but he was reunited with his high school teammate, Trent Stephney, a senior starting point guard for the Bulldogs.
“We stayed in touch with each other even when we were at different schools,” Stephney told the Citizen Times. “When he decided to transfer, I told him he needed to come here and for us to play together again.”
Pember was an immediate impact player for UNCA last season when he averaged 15.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.0 blocked shots.
“I knew he was a good player,” Morrell said. “I didn’t know he was going to be this good for us.
“But around the middle of last year when we were going into conference play, he really started coming on, and it spilled over into this year.”
Pember scored 40 points in this season’s opener when UNCA won 98-95 at Central Florida in double overtime. He hit 12 of 21 shots, 4 of 6 three-pointers and 12 of 13 free throws.
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“Everyone talks about the portal, and sometimes people don’t see the positives,” said Musselman, who has added numerous transfers in his eight seasons at Nevada and Arkansas. “But I think that’s a cool story that Pember is having the year that he’s having and had a great year last year.”
Arkansas added five transfers this season — including starters Ricky Council and Makhi Mitchell — and has six freshmen, led by McDonald’s All-Americans Anthony Black, Nick Smith and Jordan Walsh, who all have been starting.
“Coach Musselman’s done a great job acquiring talent,” Morrell said. “He’s gotten it from the high school ranks, he’s gotten it through the transfer portal. In this day and age, it’s a great play.”
The Razorbacks are 53-6 at Walton Arena under Musselman, including 39-1 since the start of the 2020-21 season.
“You’ve got to be careful,” Morrell said. “You can go in there and be awed by who they are and get your ass beat.
“Arkansas is just so dang talented. They’re the upper echelon of college basketball.”
UNCA has a strong 1-2 scoring punch in Pember and 6-5 senior Tajion Jones, who is averaging 14.8 points. Jones has hit a school-record 300 three-pointers in 769 attempts and this season is 39 of 81 (48.1%).
“It’s important to locate Jones as quick as possible and not allow him to get catch-and-shoot rhythm threes,” Musselman said.
The Bulldogs are averaging 81.8 points to rank 30th nationally. Arkansas is averaging 78.9 points.
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“They like to get out and run,” Musselman said. “Obviously we like to run as well. Transition defense will be a big part of this game.”
Morrell said UNCA doesn’t want to try to out-run the Razorbacks.
“They’ve got a team littered with guys that really excel in transition, so we’re not going to go in there and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to run it up and down the floor all game,’ ” Morrell said. “But we’re also not going to go in there and not be us.
“We try to play fast, we want to play fast, but we try to play smart, too.”
The Bulldogs come into tonight’s game off a 74-73 victory at East Tennessee State last Saturday when Pember hit a three-point shot with 1.2 seconds left after catching an inbound pass.
“I’m not going to sit here and say I drew up the perfect play to get him that shot from 30 feet,” Morrell said. “He’s a good player and he made a hell of a shot. That’s pretty much what it was.
“Because of his size and how quickly and how high he gets the ball off, it definitely worked in our favor.”
Transferring to UNCA has worked in favor of Pember.
“Life’s different over here, which is fine,” Pember told the Citizen Times. “I like to think of myself as a pretty laid-back person, so it fits my persona well.”