Playing five-on-five basketball is the norm.
Except for much of last season, the University of Arkansas-Little Rock men were lucky if it could go four-on-four in a given practice.
That's why Coach Darrell Walker more than once reiterated health after his Trojans wrapped up their first practice ahead of the 2022-23 campaign inside the Jack Stephens Center on Monday afternoon.
"It's refreshing to have a team full of guys that are practicing, it really is," Walker told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "I like this team. We've got some players on this team, but we're young, let's just be honest."
From the perspective of UALR's fifth-year coach, he has seven "freshmen" -- although that includes a pair of second-year players in North Little Rock's D.J. Smith and classmate Jordan Jefferson, both of whom were thrust into the fire as rookies because of the Trojans' extremely limited depth.
Jefferson, at one point this summer, measured 2 inches taller and 20 pounds heavier than he did in March when the then-freshman nearly single-handedly willed 14th-seeded UALR into the Sun Belt Conference Tournament semifinals.
Jefferson made eight three-pointers against South Alabama for a career-high 24 points, then followed that the next day with 17 points and five rebounds against Troy.
"We finished the season strong," Walker said. "I thought if we could have gotten past Troy, we'd have been a legitimate threat the next few games. ... [But] we were very shorthanded and I moved on."
Walker went into recruiting with the knowledge that he'd have three of his recruits from the 2021 signing class back in the fold this season.
Most notable from that group is senior forward DeAntoni Walker, who started all eight games he played last season while averaging 10.4 points and 4.4 rebounds in 26 minutes.
Add in redshirt freshmen Ethan Speaker, the leading scorer in Nevada in 2019-20, and McDonald's All-American nominee Chris Walker, and that's three significant additions to the returning core of Smith, Jefferson, Isaiah Palermo, Myron Gardner and Jovan Stulic.
It's still more than a month out until the Trojans will play a game that counts -- UALR opens at Southern Illinois on Nov. 7 and will play four home games before its inaugural Ohio Valley Conference schedule begins Dec. 29 against Tennessee-Martin.
But Walker believes his team is already ahead of schedule.
"Before we came in the gym today, I told my team it's non-negotiable: We have to be really good defensively," Walker said. "We're a young basketball team, we've got a lot of games on the road and we're going to have to defend well."