LITTLE ROCK — A week ago, UALR guard Jeanette Merriex hoisted jumpers in relative solitude of an empty Jack Stephens Center, hauling in crisp passes from assistant coach Rebecca Chilton Peoples.
Catch, square to the room, elevate from the floor. A fluid stroke had evaporated.
“Nice,” Peoples said. “Good lift.”
At her apex, Merriex peels the guide hand away, flicking her wrist and watching the ball’s spin on its parabolic arc toward the rim. The trajectory falls short, the rotation of the ball halted by the side of the rim.
“All right,” Peoples said. “Put up another one.”
And in quiet repetition Merriex, diligently lofted another shot in an effort to revive one of the best natural shooting strokes for the UALR women.
“My shot has just been off,” said Merriex, who is averaging 3.7 points per game and shooting 20.0 percent from the field through three games. “In preseason I was shooting it a lot better. I’ve just been wondering what’s going on. I’m trying to get into the flow and just keep the same shot every time.”
For the Trojans (2-1), Merriex’s effort to find her shooting touch is a critical for an offense scouring for balance behind high-scoring Chastity Reed. In the process, the 5-10 sophomore faces pressure to replace the steady accuracy of former Trojans guard Kim Sitzmann, who graduated as the program’s second all-time leading scorer and sixth-best three-point shooter.
Merriex is connecting on a woeful 15.4 percent of her three-point shots, while at the same time struggling to assert herself on the defensive end of the floor.
Off to the side, resting in a folding chair, Coach Joe Foley looked on silently as the sophomore worked her away around the arc and lofted two jumpers at each stop. All while her teammates were sequestered in a film room watching tape.
“That’s the way to get it back,” said Foley, his eyes tracing shots toward the rim. “Just work a little bit on your own, not solely in practice.”
Reed, a senior who played with Sitzmann for three seasons, said Merriex is working through the common jitters tied to increased playing time on the floor.
“It’s nerves a little bit,” Reed said. “Doing things people want her to do instead of doing what she can do. I know she can play. She’s a great shooter, probably one of the best on the team just as far as her natural shot.”
“They’re not always going to do what you want them to do,” Merriex said of defenders. “You have to react and do it quickly. That’s been the biggest thing, the hardest thing.
“If people give me space, sometimes I hesitate and think about it too much. That’s where I get jumbled up.”
Yet, Merriex isn’t alone in her anxiety at picking up Foley’s motion offense. While she has started, freshman Taylor Ford and junior Megan Williams have split minutes on the wing along with mainstays Asriel Rolfe and Shanika Butler, who played for the first time this season in Friday’s victory over Louisiana Tech after recovering from an early October surgery on her foot.
“The last two or three weeks, those kids have gotten a lot reps,” Foley said. “It’s helped create more depth. ... We’ve just got to get these freshmen a little bit more fluid and get a little bit more scoring out of everybody.”
Though production has been stilted at times, Foley said growing pains are natural in trying to build depth and relieve pressure on Reed, who is averaging 23.0 points per game.
“Her shooting touch is one we could really use in this offense,” Foley said of Merriex. “If we can get her going on the perimeter with a steady hand, that would be ideal.”
That need isn’t lost on the soft-spoken Merriex.
“I’ve got to realize that she can’t do it all herself,” she said of Reed. “That’s why I need to become more aggressive. That’s hard, because it’s Chas, and she’s usually got it.”
Sports, Pages 29 on 11/25/2010