County Line senior basketball player Adrian Bean is a shooting specialist

He can consistently shoot the basketball well from beyond the 3-point line. While that’s a strong point of Adrian Bean’s game, the County Line senior equally takes a great deal of pride in passing the rock. It’s really something he focused on more during this past offseason.

“I’ve always loved passing the ball, but this year I’ve had the most assists than I ever have this season by this time,” said Bean, who primarily plays shooting guard. “I just love sharing the ball with my teammates because I think a good pass is just as good as scoring my own points.”

But make no mistake, when Bean has an opportunity to shoot the ball, chances are he’s not really going to pass that up.

This season, he has made 42% of his chances from long distance, part of a 14 points per game average as the Indians clinched a berth in the Class 1A State Tournament with a 27-4 record.

Shooting from long range was always Bean’s passion from an early age.

“I’ve always enjoyed it, like watching as a kid and growing up watching everybody shoot,” he said. “And that’s what I always used to practice when I was younger because I always used to be smaller than everybody and I couldn’t really get any points around the rim, so I’d always like to pass and shoot it. Those are my two biggest things I do now is just pass and shoot it.”

Bean displayed a hot shooting hand in a December home win against Magazine. In that game, he converted 10-of-11 of his 3-point attempts. Bean ended up with 32 points that night, 30 of those coming on the 10 3’s. His other two points came on a fast-break layup.

“Definitely this season by far, that was my best game individually and probably as a team,” Bean said. “As a team, we had 17 3’s and I think we shot over 65% from the field all game.”

But Bean considers the best game of his career last season’s regional championship game against Jasper, when he hit nine treys to help County Line to a hard-fought victory.

“I had finished with 29 points and it just means so much more to me because we only won by three points and it was for a regional title,” Bean said.

Bean has been part of regional title squads his sophomore and junior seasons. But each year, the Indians – who won the Class 1A state title his freshman season – were upended in the opening round at state. So this season, Bean is determined to help the Indians go further in the 1A state tourney, which starts March 3 at Lafayette County High School in Stamps.

Bean is a two-time All-State selection, having scored more than 1,000 career points, while also an All-State golfer while playing baseball as well at County Line. But of those three sports, Bean has always had a passion for basketball.

“I’ve been playing since I was like 3; my mom got me into it and she coached me throughout Little League and I just loved it,” he said. “I love playing sports; it’s my favorite thing to do, just be active. … (But my favorite is) definitely basketball, just the energy that comes from playing it.”

Bean, who plans to attend Arkansas State University-Newport and study to be a lineman, knows after County Line’s state tournament run ends, so likely will his basketball career.

“I’m just trying to take it slow as possible and play one game at a time,” he said. “Because it’s just playing in the moment, and that’s when we’re best as a team is when we’re just in the moment, having fun, instead of looking ahead.”