No slump for sophomore point guard

posted in: Sports, Top Stories, Winter | 0

There is no sophomore slump for Pacific University men’s basketball point guard Davis Holly. Coming into his second year as the starting guard for the Boxers, he has dramatically improved his stats from his freshmen year.

Holly currently is averaging 12.8 points per game compared to his 7.3 last season, which is third on the team behind junior Brevin Brown and senior Nate Olowo. He is also averaging a staggering 33.8 minutes a game, which leads the team compared to his average of 28.5 minutes last season. Not to mention his improvement in dishing out assists to his teammates, with an average of 4.0 to his 2.6 last season.

Of the 20 games this season, Holly has been in double digits in 15 of them. He had a career-high 25 points in an 88-73 victory over Lin eld. Holly also had a career-high 12 assists along with his 17 points and 9 rebounds, which was one shy of what could have been his first triple-double as a Boxer.
From the free throw line, Holly has hit 48 of his 51 attempts, which ranks him first in the Northwest Conference (NWC) at 92.5 percent.

Coming into this season, Holly not only had a focus to physically become a better player, but also on becoming more of a leader for the Boxers, wanting to lead his teammates into a positive direction.

“My expectations for this year, individually, was to improve as a leader and really take a big step in being able to lead guys in a good direction, rather than just start at point guard,” Holly said. “I was aiming to not only improve my on-court leadership, but I was really focused on getting stronger so I would be able to be a better defender and handle physical pressure from other guards.”

Holly has surely become a better defender for the Boxers, with 21 steals on the season with four games left, compared to his 17 steals all of last season.

He gives credit to building chemistry with teammates and overall becoming more comfortable with his role at Pacific regarding his improvement from last season.

“I have gotten better at setting up my teammates in positions to score and I am able to do that by just feeling more comfortable at Pacific and building chemistry with the guys,” Holly said. “I understand where they want to have the ball to be the best player they can be.”

As for their team play this season, it has been an up and down season for the Boxers. After starting the season 8-0, they went on a seven-game losing skid and as of now, stand 11-10 on the season.

However, Holly believes the future is bright and the chemistry between the team has been good.

“This year, our chemistry has been good for the most part,” Holly said. “Even through tough stretches, we all stick together and believe in each other. However, we do need to remember to continue to move the basketball because that’s how we get the easiest and most high percentage shots. The future looks good for us though, we have a lot of strong wing players up and coming who can really shoot the ball so I am excited for that.”

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