Early league start concerns Sun Belt coaches

UALR Coach Steve Shields says he hopes his team is ready for Sun Belt Conference play, even though the season is only three weeks old. “I’m not sure if we’re where we want to be as far as rebounding the ball,” Shields said. “As a team we’ve got a [minus-2.3] rebounding margin, and that’s very concerning right now.”
UALR Coach Steve Shields says he hopes his team is ready for Sun Belt Conference play, even though the season is only three weeks old. “I’m not sure if we’re where we want to be as far as rebounding the ball,” Shields said. “As a team we’ve got a [minus-2.3] rebounding margin, and that’s very concerning right now.”

— Steve Shields seems to have settled on a starting lineup for his UALR men’s basketball team heading into its eighth game of the season.

That’s a good thing, considering with eight freshmen and seven newcomers Shields figured finding a consistent rotation — let alone a group of five starters — would take some time.

Shields and the Trojans have had even less time to do so this year.

UALR (4-3) hosts Troy (4-3) at 7:30 tonight in its Sun Belt Conference opener, one of 20 league games each of the 11 schools will play this season and the earliest conference opener since at least 1991, when UALR joined the league.

Five Sun Belt games will be played today — Arkansas State opens at Florida International — and five more will be played Saturday as league coaches cross their fingers that their teams, three weeks into the season, are ready to play games that will count just as much as those played three months from now.

“You hope so,” Shields said. “I’m not sure if we’re where we want to be as far as rebounding the ball. ... As a team we’ve got a [minus-2.3] rebounding margin, and that’s very concerning right now.”

The 20-game conference schedule was implemented when Denver’s departure to the Western Athletic Conference this year left the league with 11 members and unbalanced divisions. The size of the schedule wasn’t a problem for most of the league’s coaches, Shields said, but starting conference play only three weeks into the season was a concern.

Shields said the conference will move to 18 league games next year and most coaches hope to play three conference games in some weeks, allowing the start of the Sun Belt schedule to be pushed until after Christmas.

Until then, teams will have to deal with a conference game a week after Thanksgiving — four weeks sooner than teams played their first league game a year ago.

Shields has spent part of the first three weeks reminding his young team how much quicker things need to be settled.

“He says it’s tough, but you’ve got to get it done,” junior forward Will Neighbour said. “Nobody really cares. Nobody wants to hear any excuses. The only one that wants to hear that is your mom. It’s tough for everyone.”

Shields has stuck with the same starting group — guards John Gillon and Leroy Isler and forwards James White, Michael Javes and Neighbour — the past four games.

It’s the group Shields went with in a 59-43 victory over Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Nov. 19, a game that followed two blowout road losses.

He stuck with it for a 78-56 victory over Jacksonville on Nov. 21 and a 69-56 victory over previously unbeaten SMU in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Saturday before Sunday’s 74-62 loss to South Carolina.

“Who knows what the future has?” Shields said. “I do like the way that group has given good energy, good intensity starting out the game, and I think it gives us a goodsized lineup.”

Sports, Pages 22 on 11/29/2012

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