“Javion, make sure you remember that doctor’s appointment.”
To start off the time I spent with Central Arkansas head coach John Shulman and Javion Guy-King, the 2025-26 Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year made sure to take care of a reminder with his starting guard.
But, the truth is, Guy-King had not always been the starting guard. He hadn’t been much of anything to Shulman’s rotation ever since the coach came in following his freshman season. Guy-King was forced to sit on the bench for the entirety of the 2024-25 season due to an NCAA violation. Additionally, the Little Rock native had only been the starting guard for Shulman for 17 of his 27 games this season, beginning as an injury replacement for Shulman’s UA-Huntsville guy Cole McCormick.
“Javion was coming off the bench and doing some neat things, but [he was] coming off the bench and Cole was starting,” Shulman said. “[He] started majority of last year. Javion didn’t pout. He didn’t whine about it. He just kind of kept on going, and Cole struggled a little bit because he put too much pressure on himself, and Javion was playing really good, and so we just flipped it.“
That flip came right before the biggest game of the season for the Bears, where they would venture up to Clarksville to take on the ASUN-leading Austin Peay Governors, winners of 10 straight at that point. With McCormick out for injury, Guy-King was slotted into a lineup with its main scorers already solidified in Camren Hunter and Ty Robinson, yet the junior for UCA would go on to score a game-high 31 in the Bears biggest win of the season.
“The first possession of the game against Austin Peay, he missed a three,” Shulman said. “Now old Javionprobably a month and a half ago, wouldn’t have shot another ball for about six or seven possessions, but we got the offensive board. We swung it, and then the next time he caught it, he shot again. He shot two threes in the first 38 seconds of the game, made the second one, and from that moment on, he’s made us a different basketball team. He’s made Cam Hunter a different player. He’s made Ty Robinson a different player. He’s made Luke [Moore] different. We now have another scoring option that changes our team completely. And Javion has stepped into that role just recently. I know he’s wanted to do it a lot longer, but thank God we found it now instead of being too late.“
Despite being a recent addition to the main lineup, leadership has always been under the belt of the graduate of Little Rock’s University Mills High School. His initiative and desire to win has been on full display to his coach that only had praises to speak of him.
“Not a lot of people know this, and now a lot of people are going to know this, [but when] we got beat in overtime at Bellarmine, and we got beat in overtime against Eastern Kentucky, me and Javion had a come-to-Jesus meeting, not just a one-sided come-to-Jesus meeting, but I think so much and I’ve got so much respect for that guy,” Shulman said. “I sat there and listened to him as much as he listened to me and [speaking to Guy-King], I’m convinced that that changed our season completely. So that guy right there, Javion Guy-King, is a flipping dude, a leader, a player, a mature adult and a great young man.”
It all could have ended if Guy-King was anything like the players of this era, opting to return to Conway despite being ineligible for the first season under a new head coach following a year where he played well enough to garner interest from outside schools. The guard instead put his head down and went to war for a coach that was ever-desiring to win his trust.
“[Coach Shulman] said I didn’t smile with him [when he first got here],” Guy-King said. “That’s just kind of how I am, though. It took a while to get get open with him, but, I mean, it didn’t take really long built that bond, and I mean, looking back on it, it was an amazing, perfect thing.”
“The first time I met him like he was the leader of that team,” Shulman said. “That team we inherited, we were expecting huge things, and Javion had a little bit of a hiccup. It wasn’t harmful. It wasn’t drug related. It wasn’t anything crazy, but he had to sit out last year, and by the end of last year, it had been disastrous. We won nine games. Everybody was hurt the entire year, but by the end of the year, Javion was our guy. He was our leader. It’s crazy thinking about that, playing Stetson in Nashville in the first round of the ASUN tournament feels kind of like yesterday, but it was a year ago. Javion took over our basketball team.”
Shulman noted Guy-King’s love not just for the players and coaches, but his rare love for the program he is a part of.
“He wanted to do something special at the University of Central Arkansas,” Shulman said. “That’s why we’re good, because we got a bunch of kids that really care about where they’re at, and in this era, that doesn’t happen often. Javion took over our team last March, and absolutely he’s part of our leadership council. I’ve had very few guys in my 39 years as a head basketball coach and a coach in college, really to tell me the truth that Javion did in an airport in Lexington, Ky., and it’s awesome. It’s refreshing. It’s sometimes it’s not what you want to hear, but if you value somebody, and you respect somebody, you listen to them. I tell coaches all the time, don’t ever take criticism from somebody you wouldn’t take advice from because it’s stupid. Well, I would take advice from Javion. Javion is a mature adult, all right, and so if he gives me some criticism, I’m gonna listen.”
Long gone are the days of hard conversations in airports, but as the Bears head to Jacksonville looking to win their first-ever conference tournament, the only conversations to be had will be ones of respect, care, and the desire to win for the name stretched across that purple-and-gray jersey.
