MARY-VILLE, Mo. — The smell of fresh paint wafted from Ben McCollum’s office toward the couch and chairs that cluttered the hallway outside, testaments of change in the Bearcat basketball program.

McCollum, named late last month as Northwest’s new basketball coach, hopes a few broad brush strokes will give a new look to a program that limped to a 12-15 record and missed the MIAA Tournament for the first time since many of his players were in preschool.

One of those brush strokes wiped away guard DuJuan Harris on Thursday, the News-Press has learned from a source inside the program. Harris leaves the team after a season when the junior college transfer averaged 6.9 points and 22 minutes per game.

McCollum, a former Northwest player and graduate assistant, had no comment on that report, but he acknowledged he is an evaluation phase right now.

“We’re evaluating the kids that we have and the program as a whole, and eventually we will make the decisions that need to be made,” McCollum said.

One decision already made is on his staff. McCollum said there will be no changes in his coaching staff, which includes assistant coach Austin Meyer, who was a freshman player at Northwest during McCollum’s senior season.

“They know the Northwest program, they know the kind of players I would like to recruit,” McCollum said of his staff. “They’re youthful, hard-working, and I couldn’t have a better staff.”

Andy Peterson, who served last season as graduate assistant, will be back for a second year in that post. Peterson, who played four years for the Bearcats, is just the type of player McCollum hopes to recruit.

“The last few years we haven’t had those good freshmen that come in and work their way up to being excellent senior,” McCollum said.

If McCollum gets his way, his first recruiting season at Northwest will yield four or five quality recruits. But with just one graduating senior on the 2008-09 roster, simple mathematics suggest that Harris could be joined by others on the roster of former Bearcats.

The most visible need right now is at power forward, where Hunter Henry’s reign has come to its close via graduation.

“There are no Hunters out there that we’re going to find,” McCollum said. “Is there one that can develop into a Hunter? I’m sure there is, and that’s kind of what you look for.”

McCollum spent the past four seasons as assistant coach at Emporia State, where by necessity he learned a different recruiting style from that of his predecessor, Steve Tappmeyer, who retired in early March after 21 years at the helm of the tradition-rich Northwest program.

“I learned how to recruit a little bit differently, as far as going out and seeing more players and going and getting players in, as opposed to the school recruiting itself (via reputation),” McCollum said. “We had to go out and actively get players.”

McCollum figures to bring a more uptempo game to Bearcat Arena. That will be the most noticeable difference, he said, although the pace of the game will be determined somewhat by the players he is able to recruit.

Few changes are expected defensively, however.

“Tapp’s defense was the best in the league, so there’s not a lot you’d want to change from that,” he said.

Sports reporter Rick Dunaway can be reached at rickd@npgco.com