FAYETTEVILLE — Marty Barnes first saw one of Joe Kretschmar Jr.’s basketball teams when he was a student at John Brown University in the early 1970s.

And from the beginning, Barnes, who was in school with the hopes of becoming a basketball coach, liked everything he saw about Kretschmar, the former longtime boys basketball coach at Fayetteville.

Barnes noticed the way Kretschmar’s teams constantly hustled throughout games, the way they set up certain plays and the way they proudly carried themselves off the court.

It was something that greatly influenced Barnes’ coaching philosophy back then, and something that still influences him today.

Kretschmar, who coached basketball at Fayetteville for 26 years, winning 535 games and three state championships, lost a battle with cancer early Wednesday morning at his home in Prairie Grove. He was 75.

Barnes, the boys basketball coach at Rogers High, reflected on his friendship with Kretschmar on Wednesday afternoon, saying he was not only one of his best coaching friends, but his biggest influence in coaching basketball.

After Barnes graduated college, he eventually became the boys basketball coach at Russellville, where both he and Kretschmar established one of the most competitive basketball rivalries in the state.

“There were times that we both just had some knockdown dragouts,” Barnes said. “That’s the way both our teams competed, and I got it all from him. We had a very intense rivalry, but it was friendly as Joe and myself always respected each other.”

Kretschmar, who retired from coaching and being Fayetteville’s athletic director in 1992, made Fayetteville’s basketball program one of the state’s best, as his team consistently averaged 20 wins per season.

During Kretschmar’s tenure, Fayetteville played in the state tournament 24 of 26 years, winning 10 conference championships along the way.

Kretschmar, who was inducted into the Arkansas High School Coaches Hall of Fame in 2007, also sent 38 players on to college on athletic scholarships, including six All-Americans. Even five assistant coaches who worked with him at Fayetteville eventually became coaches in some of Arkansas’ largest school districts.

Barry Gebhart, Fayetteville’s boys basketball coach, replaced Kretschmar in 1992 after not only playing for him from 1979-81, but coaching on his staff full time from 1987-92. Gebhart said Kretschmar is still regarded as one of the most respected high school coaches in Arkansas.

“He taught me the game of basketball,” Gebhart said. “He was the person that taught me the X’s and O’s of the game. That’s what made me want to go into coaching. When I replaced him, I just tried to keep the program at the level he built it up to.

“To look back and see I played and coached with him, it was just an honor. He’s a guy everybody is going to miss greatly.”

The state finals schedule was announced Sunday afternoon at the Arkansas Activities Association office in Little Rock. All state championship games will be played in Hot Springs’ Summit Arena at the Hot Springs Convention Center.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Class 3A girls, 3:30 p.m. — Valley Springs vs. Charleston

Class 3A boys, 5:15 p.m. — Valley Springs vs. Arkansas Baptist

Class 4A girls, 7 p.m. — Lonoke vs. Shiloh Christian

Class 4A boys, 8:45 p.m. — Dumas vs. Stuttgart

Friday, March 13, 2009

Class 1A boys, 3:30 p.m. — Guy-Perkins vs. Mount Vernon-Enola

Class 2A girls, 5:15 p.m. — Danville vs. Conway St. Joseph

Class 2A boys, 7 p.m. — Melbourne vs. Conway St. Joseph

Class 6A girls, 8:45 p.m. — West Memphis vs. Lake Hamilton

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Class 1A girls, 11 a.m. — Scranton vs. Kingston

Class 5A boys, 12:45 p.m. — North Pulaski vs. Greene County Tech

Class 7A girls, 2:30 p.m. — North Little Rock vs. Fayetteville

Class 7A boys, 4:15 p.m. — Rogers High vs. Fayetteville

Class 5A girls, 6 p.m. — Siloam Springs vs. Vilonia

Class 6A boys, 7:45 p.m. — Jacksonville vs. Little Rock Hall

It was a mad scene here in Airedale Arena on Saturday afternoon for all the Siloam Springs fans who watched the Lady Panthers overcome a 14-point deficit to defeat Beebe 55-52.

With the victory, Siloam advanced to its first state championship game since 2002.

Be sure to read The Morning News at www.nwaonline.net for my story, but here’s a small tidbit …

Ashley Adams, a 6-foot-4 junior, also finished with the most impressive stat line of the game: 20 points, 17 rebounds, 11 blocked shots and three steals.

Needless to say, she was the difference-maker for the Lady Panthers.

“We just knew that we had to score (late in the game), and the easiest way to score was getting it down low,” Adams said. “Our point guards just got me the ball and I knew what I had to do, I had to finish.

“Nobody wanted this to be our last game, so we got pumped up at halftime and just told ourselves that we could do this, that we could win.”

The victory for Siloam (22-6) was even more meaningful on Saturday because of how it lost by 19 points in last year’s semifinal game to eventual state champion Camden Fairview.

Here are the latest updated state tournament brackets that we have. However, there are still a few scores from Thursday night that we weren’t able to get because of how late the games were.

Well, it’s that time of year where people travel madly across the state to watch great high school basketball — state tournament time.

I know we have been terrible at updating this blog since, like … ummm, December? Yeah, that’s no good. But, rest assured, I know I’ll be trying to update this week with scores or any other information I find out concerning high school basketball.

I’ll be in Alma all week covering the Class 5A State Tournament in Alma, Paul Nielsen will be in Fort Smith covering the Class 7A State Tournament and Kurt Voigt will be in Pine Bluff covering the Class 4A State Tournament. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some interesting information up here this week that’ll help you with everything you need to know.

Something else you all should know is a couple Web sites where you can get up-to-date scores from games across the state. Of course, you can read The Morning News tonight for all our stories from today’s games, but you can also visit CSN Sports, who’ll be updating scores every five minutes.

Check back this week … And I promise, we’ll actually update stuff this time!

GENTRY — Megan Herbert scored 20 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as Shiloh Christian won its second game in as many days with a 72-33 win over Gentry on Saturday.

The Lady Saints (19-1, 7-0 4A-1 Conference) led 35-20 at halftime before using a 30-5 run in the third quarter to extend that lead to 65-25 over the Lady Pioneers (8-9, 3-5).

Eleven players scored for the Lady Saints, who also got 13 points from senior Christine Smith.

In the boys game, Shiloh (6-11, 3-4) got 21 points from sophomore David Matthews in a 60-48 win over the Pioneers (8-9, 2-6).

Gentry led 29-28 at halftime, but Shiloh took a 40-38 lead after three quarters and put the game away by outscoring the Pioneers 20-10 in the fourth quarter.

Derek Dellinger also finished in double figures for the Saints with 14 points, and David Eichler added 12 in the win.

Shiloh returns to action when it travels to Prairie Grove on Tuesday, while Gentry is at Pea Ridge.

SPRINGDALE — If this was an off-night for Shelton Baird, pity the teams that have to face him when he’s on.

ROGERS — For the Rogers High offense on Saturday night, good things came in 3s.

VAN BUREN — After struggling offensively for three quarters, Van Buren finally came to life in the final period.

SPRINGDALE — The defending Class 5A state champion Siloam Springs Panthers played like it Thursday night.