Trent Cooley doesn’t plan to play basketball when he goes off to college later this year. If that’s the case, he’s definitely going out on a high note.

Cooley, a 6-foot senior point guard at Van Buren and a two-year starter, has been an impact player for the Pointers and has lit up the scoreboard on several occasions. One such game was on Feb. 4, when he scored 25 points in a 63-51 win at home against Greenwood, avenging a loss to the Bulldogs last month. Fifteen of those points came in the fourth quarter.

“I felt that I had a really slow start, only having 4 points in the first half of the game, and knew that I needed to score more for the team’s sake,” Cooley said.

The win against Greenwood has helped turn things around for Van Buren, which has won three of its past four ballgames, capped by a Feb. 14 62-43 win at Clair Bates Arena against Mountain Home. Cooley also had 25 points in that game, and even picked up a double-double as he grabbed 10 rebounds. A week earlier, he scored 20 points and had five boards in a two-point win against Siloam Springs.

“I like our ability to fight and never let the small things get the best of us,” Cooley said.

Twice, he scored 28 points earlier this season. Cooley was averaging approximately 15 points per game and was making around 50 percent of his field goal attempts and 40 percent of his 3-pointers.

“I think my strengths as a basketball player is to be able to score at any given moment, and I feel like my ability to speak up to the team as a captain has improved,” Cooley said.

Last season, Cooley gained viral notoriety for a shot he made to beat the third-period buzzer in a game at Greenwood. He released the shot from 85 feet and it circled through the net. That shot even made ESPN’s “SportsCenter” as part of that show’s Top Plays segment. But these days, Cooley hasn’t really given thought about his highlight-reel play.

“I don’t really think about that shot much often any more,” he said. “It was a cool shot, but it’s a new season and that shot can’t define me as a player. I don’t really hear people talk about it much now.”

So why isn’t Cooley planning to play basketball at the next level? He’s going to play another sport instead, as Cooley signed to play football at Arkansas Tech. Cooley was an All-State receiver for Van Buren’s football team. He is the school’s all-time leader in career receptions with 171 and was second all-time in receiving yards with more than 2,500. In addition, Cooley holds school records for most catches in a season (85) and in a game (14).

“I like football more than basketball because I like the physicality of the game,” Cooley said. “What eventually made me decide (on Tech) was the campus life and it felt like home.”

But Cooley isn’t ready to give up on basketball just yet.

“I think it will be pretty tough dealing with the reality of it being my LAST game, but eventually I’ll be able to get over playing for an actual team and maybe join intramural while in college,” he said. “The main thing I’ll miss from playing basketball is the connections and friendships I’ve gained; over the past few years, I’ve been able to meet and create new friendships with kids from different schools or the upperclassmen or underclassmen at my own school.”

Basketball was the second sport Cooley took up when he was young, but football wasn’t the first.

“I started off playing baseball, but it wasn’t something that I loved playing,” he said. “I then moved on to playing basketball and I loved that sport, but when I started playing football, it was because of my brother’s practice and a little league coach asking me if I wanted to play.”

And football eventually became the sport Cooley really got hooked on, and he’ll keep playing it when he heads down Interstate 40 to Tech, where Cooley plans to major in physical therapy.

“I think I’m just going to stick to strictly football and getting my degree,” he said.

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