Roadrunners look to Czar for leadership

At El Dorado High School, Czar Perry averaged 21 points during his four-year career and is the school’s all-time leading scorer. To call him a shoot-first guard would’ve be sort of an understatement.

To call him one-dimensional would be flatout wrong.

At CSU-Bakersfield, Perry’s game has evolved from a shoot ‘em up two-guard into a pass-first floor leader.

“I’m the captain of the team,” he said. “They call me the general down here.”

Perry led the Roadrunners in assists and steals last season and ranked among the top-five in the conference in both categories. This season, the senior is the team leader in minutes played and boasts a 2-to-1 assiststo-turnover ratio for UC-Bakersfield, which owns a 12-7 record, including 8-4 in the Big West Conference.

Perry’s scoring average of 5.6 points per game is a dramatic departure from past seasons. He averaged 14.4 points per game in his final season at Holmes Community College, where he earned All-State and All-Region honors.

“It really wasn’t difficult,” Perry said of his transition from shooting guard to point guard. “I really just accepted the role just to do whatever to win. I really didn’t have to come here and score 20 or 30 points a game when all I really could do was just lead the team, make the right pass, make the right plays and guard on defense.”

Perry’s job for the Roadrunners is to be the facilitator, do the little things that don’t get noticed or jotted down on the stat chart. That’s a world’s away from the high-scoring gunslinger he was as a Wildcat.

He said it wasn’t a hard sell to change roles when Coach Rod Barnes recruited him.

“It really wasn’t like he just came at me and he wanted me to change it up,” Perry said. “He just told me what he needed me to do, get people involved, score in transition, defend the ball, just take out the point guard from the very beginning of the game. If I do that, we can win some games. It was just like that.”

In 19 games this season, all starts, Perry has averaged 5.8 shot attempts per outing. He’s 0-for-4 from 3-point range on the season.

“I take open looks at times but then if it’s a better shot, I pass it to the next person,” he explained.

From a player who might’ve taken four 3-point attempts in two offensive possessions in high school to a pass-first, pass-second, defensive oriented stopper, Perry’s game has changed, grown and evolved.

“Back in high school I had people teaching me the point guard spot. For example, the Jonesboro coach, when I was with him in the summer, he was teaching me the point guard spot,” said Perry. “But I didn’t have years with him. If I would’ve had years with him, I would’ve been more experienced.”

A Liberal Studies major, Perry would like to continue his career after college. Showing he can play the role of a traditional point guard has, undoubtedly, raised his stock.

“Most definitely because at first there was this question of whether I was a twoguard or a point guard. They really didn’t know. So I just worked on my game to show them I was a point guard, and I can do everything a point guard does,” said Perry, who has options for next season.

“We’ve got a free year. I was thinking about coming back for the free year and grow even more and become a better basketball player.”

He plans to play basketball as long as he can. When the ball finally stops bouncing, “I think I’ll coach somewhere, probably high school. I’ll see what happens.”

Perry said Bakersfield is located about an hour-and-forty minutes from Los Angels and four hours from Oakland. He likes it … for now.

“I ain’t no California kid. I’ve got to get back to (El Dorado). I miss the fam,” he said. “I want to come back home. I ain’t no California kid. I’ll never be that.”

Perry and the Roadrunners will appear on ESPNU next Friday against UC-Santa Barbara.