Ka'Nesheia Cobbins watched from the bench in street clothes a year ago as Aundrea Gamble carved up UALR in an easy Arkansas State victory.
Cobbins will be front and center at 5:05 p.m. today when UALR (16-2, 9-0) makes its first trip back to the Convocation Center in Jonesboro since Gamble scored 27 points that night in a 77-45 victory, ASU's largest in the series in 14 years.
UALR women at Arkansas State
WHEN 5:05 tonight
WHERE Convocation Center, Jonesboro
RECORDS ASU 13-7, 8-2 Sun Belt Conference; UALR 16-2, 9-0
RADIO KARN-AM, 920, in Little Rock; KNEA-FM, 95.3, in Jonesboro; KNEA-AM, 970, in Jonesboro
SERIES ASU leads 44-15
TICKETS $8 admission for both games
INTERNET astateredwolves.com
PROBABLE STARTING LINEUPS
ARKANSAS STATE
POS. NAME, HT, YR PPG RPG G Jamie Ruffi ns, 5-8, So. 2.1 2.3 G Aundrea Gamble, 5-9, Jr. 19.1 5.3 G Hanna Qedan, 5-11, Sr. 10.3 3.4 F K. Brown-Haywood, 5-11, Jr. 10.6 5.3 F Jasmine Hunt, 6-2, Sr. 9.4 5.7 COACH Brian Boyer (261-219 in 16th season at ASU and overall)
UALR
POS. NAME, HT, YR PPG RPG G Alexius Dawn, 5-4, Jr. 10.3 2.2 G Ka’Nesheia Cobbins, 5-10, Sr. 4.9 4.9 G Taylor Gault, 5-11, Jr. 11.7 7.2 F Shanity James, 5-11, Jr. 11.7 7.2 F Kaitlyn Pratt, 6-1, So. 7.6 4.7 COACH Joe Foley (231-128 in 12th season at UALR, 687-209 in 28th season overall)
TEAM COMPARISON
ASU UALR
71.6 Points for 64.9
64.2 Points against 50.1
-0.8 Rebound margin +2.1
+2.9 Turnover margin +5.6
45.3 FG pct. 43.6
31.3 3-pt. pct. 36.5
67.1 FT pct. 68.7
CHALK TALK UALR is beating Sun Belt teams by an average of 26.1 points per game, and its plus-14.8 scoring margin for the season is 21st nationally. ... ASU’s Hanna Qedan made four three-pointers and finished with a season-high 21 points in Saturday’s victory at Troy. ... UALR’s Shanity James has scored at least 14 points in five consecutive games, the longest such streak of her career. She is averaging 13.4 points in Sun Belt games.
Cobbins, UALR's senior guard, missed last year's game because of a torn ACL. Her job tonight will be finding a way to slow Gamble, the Sun Belt Conference's leading scorer and reigning player of the year who is averaging 19.1 points a game.
"I love the challenge," Cobbins said. "It starts with me. If I can do my job, it's a domino effect. I take pride in my defense a lot."
It might be the most important individual matchup tonight when UALR, the Sun Belt leader and the only team that hasn't lost a league game, visits the defending regular-season champion and preseason favorite at the midway point of the league schedule.
ASU Coach Brian Boyer went as far as to call the game a must win if ASU wants to give itself a chance to win the conference.
Boyer bases that more from how UALR is playing than an indictment of his own team. UALR takes a 10-game winning streak into the Convocation Center, and it has beaten all nine Sun Belt opponents by at least 20 points. A loss today would leave ASU (13-7, 8-2) 1 1/2 games behind UALR, which has 10 games remaining after today.
"I watch them and think it's the best team [Foley's] had," Boyer said. "They may not have the individuals, but they're just as good as all of his really good teams defensively, and where I think they're better is they're not afraid to try to score on you."
The defense starts with Cobbins, a senior who sat out last season after she tore her ACL weeks before the start of practice. Her return to the lineup has helped UALR improve from an average of 59.1 points allowed last year to 50.1 per game this year, which leads the Sun Belt and ranks fourth nationally.
Foley said this week that Cobbins is comparable to former guards Asriel Rolfe and Shanika Butler, both of whom led the Trojans to the NCAA Tournament in 2010 and 2011.
"It's very special when you get a kid that can anticipate plays and take plays away, is that in tune and can play that hard, and then have the athleticism to do it," Foley said.
The senior from Baton Rouge will need all of those traits to slow Gamble, a junior who leads the Sun Belt in scoring (19.1) and assists (92) and is shooting 46.4 percent from the floor. Gamble has scored at least 20 points 12 times this year, including five times in conference play.
"She creates, she can go well off the dribble, she can get to the rim and finish and shoot," Foley said. "Not a lot of kids can do what she can do."
Gamble is coming off her two lowest-scoring games in Sun Belt play this year. She was held to 4 points on 2-of-11 shooting in a Jan. 22 loss at Louisiana-Lafayette, a game that Boyer described as "uncharacteristic." Then she was held to 13 points Saturday at Troy, but she also had 11 assists.
That doesn't mean Gamble doesn't have UALR's attention. Foley made sure his players remembered Gamble by showing his team clips from last year's game in Jonesboro.
"It was a blowout," Cobbins said. "It happens. We have to watch that game. The things that we did in that game we have to learn from."
Cobbins being on the floor instead of in street clothes will certainly help.
The senior said Louisiana-Lafayette's Keke Veal has been her toughest defensive assignment so far, and she held Veal to 5 points on 1-for-13 shooting in a Dec. 30 victory. Cobbins also helped hold South Alabama's Breanna Hall, who averages 15.7 points, to two points and Troy's Ashley Beverly-Kelley, who averages 14.6, to five points in UALR victories.
Cobbins acknowledges that today's assignment will likely be the most difficult she's faced since Sun Belt play started, but taking on those roles is what has helped spark UALR to its best start in program history.
"It's going to be a tough one for me," Cobbins said. "She can get to the goal. I just have to be able to take away her strengths, make her use her weaknesses."
Sports on 01/29/2015