Men's Hoops' Guinn and Henry Finally Suiting Up
11/25/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 25, 2001
They spent the entire basketball season last year sitting in street clothes in the Ferrell Center. Between the two players, they've played in 124 games and scored 1,031 career points. Yet for 17 games in 2000-2001 this pair of Baylor basketball signees sat at the end of the bench, all but unnoticed by Bears fans.
R.T. Guinn and Kevin Henry joined the Baylor basketball program in the summer of 2000, but had yet to play a minute in the green and gold until this fall. This season, the pair of transfers are bringing an infusion of talent to the Bears' roster.
The Guinn-Henry duo is no stranger to head coach Dave Bliss - he recruited both players to the University of New Mexico and coached Henry for two seasons at UNM - and it's no stranger to major college basketball.
"The addition of Kevin and R.T. to our program benefits us not only because these are players with previous playing experience, but because in Kevin's case he has played for us before and he knows our system," Bliss said. "Those two players will play important roles on our team and prove themselves valuable additions."
Unlike junior college transfers, this duo brings with it experience at the Division I level. And starting experience at that. Henry was a two-year starter at New Mexico and owns 66 career starts (for comparison, that total is 23 more than the highest number of career starts among the returning Baylor players - 43 by Chad Elsey). Guinn cracked the starting lineup as a true freshman and started 13 of the final 15 games in his only season in Albuquerque.
The duo also owns postseason experience, particularly Henry. The fifth-year senior has played in six postseason contests (four NCAA games in two appearances, all under Bliss, and two NIT games). Henry has participated in the postseason in each of his three playing seasons. Guinn played in two NIT contests as a freshman at UNM.
Now the pair is in Waco, and Baylor fans are excited to see what they will bring to the Bears program.
"I think what this team has a lot of is experience, including R.T. and myself," Henry said. "We have played in a lot of games, a lot of big games. In the Big 12 you play a lot of big games and high profile games, and we've both played in those settings before."
The pair reunited with several familiar faces at Baylor. Bliss and his assistants (Doug Ash, Kevin Lewis and Brian O'Neill) all coached at New Mexico prior to coming to Baylor. Forward Greg Davis is a former UNM starter who transferred to Baylor in 1999, a year prior to Guinn and Henry.
Other than their common backgrounds, the two don't share many on-court attributes. Henry is a 6-2 guard, a veteran in his final season. Guinn is a 6-10 forward, a young, athletic big man with three seasons to play.
Henry played his freshman and sophomore seasons at UNM under Bliss in 1997-98 and 1998-99 (along with current teammate Davis), both teams reaching the NCAA Tournament. Following Bliss' departure to Baylor in 1999, Henry played one more season at New Mexico, under head coach Fran Fraschilla, as a junior in 1999-2000.
That 1999-2000 season, UNM's first since Bliss' departure and the first in which the Lobos failed to reach the NCAA Tournament in five years, Henry played alongside Guinn, an athletic big man lauded for his strength and shooting touch.
Henry's accomplishments include a career 38.3 3-point shooting percentage and a 9.3-point career scoring average. He set a UNM school record with 102 3-pointers made as a sophomore in 1998-99 in Bliss' offense. A native of Denton, Henry earned his undergraduate degree in communications this past summer and is currently working on his post-baccalaureate in coaching.
"I felt that with one year left I needed to make it the best year I could and have a great senior season on the court," Henry said. "I could have gone to other places when I decided to transfer. When I (originally) chose New Mexico, I also chose Dave Bliss. And when he decided to leave (UNM), it wasn't the same. When I decided to transfer, I chose Baylor and Dave Bliss again. I give a lot of credit to coach Bliss for bringing me here. He gave me two years of schooling to play one year and a lot of coaches wouldn't have done that."
Guinn, Baylor's projected starting center heading into the season, averaged 4.6 points and 4.8 rebounds as a true freshman at New Mexico in 1999-2000. Although Guinn was recruited to New Mexico by Bliss and his staff, they departed prior to his freshman season. Guinn played prep ball under current assistant coach O'Neill at Cibola High School in Albuquerque.
In Guinn and Henry, Baylor gets a duo with complementary talents. They are a classic inside-outside combination, a cagey veteran shooter and a rugged young post player. One is 6-2 with a quick trigger, the other is 6-10 and likes physical play. Henry is a guard with nearly unlimited range, and Guinn is a center who possesses a surprisingly good outside shot.
They've each waited over a year to put on the green and gold and compete for Baylor. A year full of workouts, practices and endless conditioning. Now, their wait is over, and Baylor fans are finally getting a look at that duo in uniform, not street clothes.
