Friday Features: UAH point guard Greg Gardner loves the aesthetics of the game
By Mike Perrin
“The game of basketball is much more aesthetically pleasing and fun when people move the ball,” said
Alabama Huntsville’s
Greg Gardner. Does he believe this because he’s a point guard or is he a point guard because he believes it?
Not that it matters. The 6-foot-5, 195-pound second-team All-Gulf South Conference performer just practices what he preaches.
Gardner is second all-time to Josh Magette on UAH’s career assists list, and to be high on that Chargers’ register – built on the precision
Lennie Acuff offense – is to be breathing rare air. This season, Gardner led the GSC with 6.2 assists a game, 10th-best in all of Division II. His triple-double (14 points, 14 assists, 10 rebounds) vs. North Alabama on Feb. 27 was one of only 16 in D2 this year.
For his career, the Indianapolis native has notched 5.04 assists per outing in his 121 – and counting – appearances. He averaged 11.3 points as a senior, was GSC All-Tournament as a junior and earned a spot on the GSC Academic Honor Roll as a sophomore and junior.
The stats will start accruing again for Gardner and his UAH teammates on Saturday when the NCAA South Region tournament begins in Huntsville.
The top-seeded Chargers (23-7) play No. 8 Saint Leo (19-11) at 5 p.m. (Central). West Georgia’s Wolves, Gulf South tournament champs after topping UAH last week in Birmingham, are 22-8 and the fourth seed with a 7:30 p.m. date with No. 5 Stillman (26-5). UAH and UWG would meet again if they survive the first round. Union, the league’s third team in the regional seeded seventh at 20-10, plays No. 2 Eckerd (25-6) at 2:30. No. 3 Barry (23-6) tips off the regional vs. No. 6 Rollins (21-8) at noon.
Gardner has high hopes that his team can make like one of his favorites for six more games before his career is over.
“My favorite team to watch is the San Antonio Spurs because they play the game the right way,” he said. “When everybody gets to touch the ball, people feel more involved and when people feel more involved they will run the floor, play defense and dive on loose balls. Ball movement is a major key in the game of basketball.”
What brought a son of the Hoosier State, where they write movies about high school basketball teams, south to football-mad Alabama?
“My AAU coach was Ronald Nored, who was a point guard at Butler, and he knew a UAH assistant coach at the time, David Ivey, because they attended the same high school (at Homewood, Ala.),” Gardner said. “Ivey came and watched him coach a few times and then he started recruiting me."
“I had never heard of UAH before they started recruiting me, but once they started, I researched them and realized how much success they had been having. When I came on my visit the family atmosphere amongst all the players and coaches was what attracted me the most. Coach Acuff is a family man and that trickles down throughout our entire program. We are an extremely close team and I think that it shows in our play on the court. We put a focus on sticking together through adversity all the time and that starts with Coach Acuff.”
Gardner comes by his athletic ability partly through genetics – of course. His father, Mike, played basketball at Division III Wisconsin-Platteville. The 22-year-old has four sisters – who are all past or current collegiate athletes. Sophomore Hannah, 20, is a basketball player at DePauw University who was Indianapolis Star Sportswoman of the Year as a high-school senior. Megan, 25, is a nurse in Nashville who played basketball at the University of Indianapolis. Kelly, 27, played hoops at Davidson College and is a physician’s assistant in North Carolina. Sarah, 29, played volleyball at Samford and is working in software sales in Nashville. His mother, Karen, went to college at Wisconsin-Lacrosse – and must have sat through a million ballgames.
Gardner’s father now works at Sewanee and his parents live in Winchester, Tenn. “That’s only about an hour away from Huntsville and they have attended every home game this year and nearly all of the away games, too,” he said. “My sisters also do a very good job of taking time out of their busy schedules to come. I can’t thank them enough for the support they have showed me over the last years. I’m truly blessed to have all of them.”
The rest of Gardner’s skills come from practice, practice, practice.
“I love being in the gym,” he said. “It’s a time when I can really focus on doing what I love, which is playing basketball. I have played basketball since I was 4- or 5-years-old, back at Municipal Gardens in Indianapolis.
“I usually spend an hour before or after practice every day working on my game. That involves ball-handling, shooting and ball screen drill work, which is my personal favorite. I’m a second-semester senior and I finished all my major and minor classes in the fall semester, so I was able to take a little bit of a lighter load this semester. This has allowed me to spend that much more time focusing on my game.”
It’s not all physical work Gardner said, though. “At UAH, film study is just as important as practice time and time in the weight room,” he said. “We really feel like we gain a significant edge in the film room.
“I also spend a good bit of my time individually looking to see what I can do better and what our team can do better. I try to go into Coach Acuff’s office once or twice a week just to talk and see what he is thinking about our team. It’s a pretty healthy relationship because he is very easy to talk to and his door is always open to all the guys. I couldn’t have asked for a better college experience and he is a big reason why.
“I think Coach Acuff is a very positive person and that translates into his coaching,” said Gardner, who plans to pursue a master’s degree in business and work as a basketball graduate assistant. “He is not much of a ‘yeller’ and he really respects his players. We know how much success he has had, so we just try to listen to him and put what he says into action. He treats us so well its hard not to play hard for him. All of the guys would run through a brick wall for him.”
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