{"id":6100,"date":"2012-03-21T13:25:10","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T13:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nsr-inc.com\/blog\/?p=6100"},"modified":"2012-03-21T13:26:32","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T13:26:32","slug":"nsr-hoops-prospect-dalton-barnes-named-daytonas-player-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/nsr-hoops-prospect-dalton-barnes-named-daytonas-player-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"NSR hoops prospect, Dalton Barnes, named Daytona’s Player-of-the-Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dalton uses all-around game to garner area’s top award<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Brent Woronoff, Daytona News-Journal staff writer<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dalton Barnes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

DAYTONA BEACH — Intangibles rarely win individual awards.\u00a0 Gaudy, eye-popping numbers do.\u00a0 NSR basketball prospect and Father Lopez High School (FL) guard Dalton Barnes is not a stat stuffer. He didn’t lead the\u00a0 area in scoring. He didn’t even lead his own team in scoring. Barnes just did\u00a0 whatever was necessary to help his team win.\u00a0 This year, he helped the Green Wave finish 26-4 and come within a game of the\u00a0 Class 3A Final Four.\u00a0 The senior is The News-Journal’s Boys Basketball Player of\u00a0 the Year, an award he’s eyed for some time.<\/p>\n

“It’s a great honor,” Barnes said. “This was one of the things I wanted to\u00a0 accomplish my senior year, along with making it as far as we (could in the\u00a0 playoffs). I thought this would be nice to go out on, winning player of the\u00a0 year. Everyone wants to be recognized for how you play. Finally, people were\u00a0 starting to recognize my skill and what I could bring to the table.”<\/p>\n

What the 6-foot-1 Barnes brought to the table this season was a little bit of\u00a0 everything — scoring, stellar defense, rebounding, playmaking and the\u00a0 occasional thunderous dunk that would bring down the house and suck the air out\u00a0 of the opponent’s psyche.<\/p>\n

“At Lake Mary Prep (in the district finals), Dalton caught an alley-oop at\u00a0 the end of the third quarter, and right after that we went on a big run,” Lopez\u00a0 forward Matt Panaggio said. “That was a great dunk.”<\/p>\n

Barnes finished second on the team to Panaggio in both scoring (14.6 points\u00a0 per game to Panaggio’s 16.0) and rebounding (5.0 to 6.9). Barnes also averaged\u00a0 2.9 assists and shot an extremely efficient 60 percent from the field and 86\u00a0percent from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

“We had a couple of guys,” Father Lopez coach Eddie Miller said. “Matt had a\u00a0 great season, too. There wasn’t much difference separating our team. We had such\u00a0 great balance; we had four guys average in double figures.<\/p>\n

“But Dalton’s numbers and the things he did in clutch situations were\u00a0 definitely worthy of player of the year. He shined in a lot of different areas.\u00a0 He’s probably the best all-around guard that I’ve coached.”<\/p>\n

Barnes said he and Panaggio “are pretty much the same player.”<\/p>\n

“We both just work as hard as we can to get our team to win,” Barnes said.<\/p>\n

Panaggio and Barnes have worked out together since they were in elementary\u00a0 school. Panaggio’s father, Mike, a former college player, and his grandfather,\u00a0 Mauro, a former coach with 50 years of experience in high school, college and\u00a0 the CBA, started drilling the boys when they played for the same team in fifth\u00a0 grade.<\/p>\n

“His family is a big part of my life,” Barnes said. “His dad always got us\u00a0 together and worked us out.<\/p>\n

“We always push each other as hard as we can. A lot of the reason I feel like\u00a0 I got to where I am today is because Matt pushes me.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dalton Barnes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Panaggio attended Father Lopez, Barnes played at Spruce Creek through\u00a0 his junior season and earned a spot on the high-level Florida Elite AAU team,\u00a0 playing alongside some of the best players in the state.\u00a0 After their junior year, Panaggio, among others, helped convince Barnes to\u00a0 transfer to Father Lopez.<\/p>\n

“We’d been best friends all through high school,” Panaggio said. “And I\u00a0 wanted to play with him instead of against him. He had been playing with all of\u00a0 us for years anyway. He fit right into our system.”<\/p>\n

When Barnes started scrimmaging with the Green Wave last summer, he deferred\u00a0 to others, Miller said.<\/p>\n

“He allowed himself to just kind of find his way and let himself fit into a\u00a0 role with the team,” Miller said. “And I think that shows his character and how\u00a0 unselfish he is.”<\/p>\n

A lot of Division I teams showed interest in Barnes, especially after he\u00a0showed he could play point guard in Florida Elite games. But he had a good\u00a0relationship with Embry-Riddle coach Steve Ridder and decided to sign with the\u00a0 NAIA power.<\/p>\n

“I was looking to go up north a little bit,” Barnes said. “But when it all\u00a0 came down to it, I wanted to stay home. I love Florida, I love my hometown. If I\u00a0 have a winning program right in my backyard, why would I leave? My parents and\u00a0 everyone get to watch me. That’s a good thing.”<\/p>\n

Barnes plans to redshirt his first season with the Eagles and work on his\u00a0 game, especially his outside shooting.\u00a0 In high school, he was so confident in his ability to drive to the basket and\u00a0 create a shot for himself or a teammate that he rarely took jumpers, though he\u00a0 did hit six of 14 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

“Coach Ridder has already talked about me playing more point guard, being\u00a0 like a combo, playing point and two-guard,” Barnes said. “I’m definitely going\u00a0 to have to change how I play, but he still likes how I’m aggressive, going to\u00a0 the rim and stuff.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve already started playing with some of the Embry-Riddle guys. I’m really\u00a0 excited to get with them and see how good I can become, and Coach Ridder is\u00a0 obviously a great coach. I want to see how hard he pushes me.”<\/p>\n

But Ridder is not sure he can push Barnes as hard as he pushes himself.<\/p>\n

“He wants to get much better,” said Ridder, whose son, Reed, was Father\u00a0 Lopez’s point guard. “Dalton is a very dedicated student-athlete with a\u00a0 tremendous drive to win. I can’t say enough good things about him.\u00a0 You build championships with guys who have great talent but even better\u00a0 character and makeup, and that’s Dalton Barnes. I really think he’s going to be\u00a0 a great one for\u00a0 us.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dalton uses all-around game to garner area’s top award by Brent Woronoff, Daytona News-Journal staff writer DAYTONA BEACH — Intangibles rarely win individual awards.\u00a0 Gaudy, eye-popping numbers do.\u00a0 NSR basketball prospect and Father Lopez High School (FL) guard Dalton Barnes is not a stat stuffer. He didn’t lead the\u00a0 area in scoring. He didn’t even … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6100"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6105,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6100\/revisions\/6105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}