In looking back at the 2008-09 season, I think it is impossible to understate just how much the four seniors meant to the success of this basketball team from a leadership standpoint.

Shane Edwards, John Fowler, Brandon Patterson and LaMarvon Jackson each led by example and became more vocal leaders throughout the course of the season. They were the primary reason that we were able to win 23 games, another division championship and tie Western Kentucky for the best record in the Sun Belt Conference.

Of the 31 games we played last year, all against Division I opponents, 15 were at home, 14 were true road games and two were neutral site games. For this team to win 23 games against that kind of schedule speaks volumes for their character, toughness and togetherness. It all started with our senior leadership. Those four guys were all about being a part of something bigger than themselves. They didn’t care about individual stats. They just wanted to win basketball games and go as far as they could go.

This group was able to break two significant school records by winning 15 Sun Belt Conference games and 11 of 14 true road games. You don’t win on the road without a lot of mental toughness on your basketball team, and it all started with those seniors.

I was really excited about everything this group accomplished, and that was the reason for the extreme disappointment in the way our season ended against South Alabama and our not making it into the NIT.

From an individual standpoint, Shane Edwards really developed into one of the top players in the Sun Belt last season, and that was evident in him earning First Team All-Sun Belt honors. He is someone who showed up from junior college weighing 185 pounds, and he had a bit of an adjustment period during his first year at the Division I level.

He really played well the last 10-12 games of his junior year, though, and that carried over into the summer, as he had one of the best offseasons that we’ve had from an individual standpoint since I’ve been here. He committed to the weight program that John Barron put together for him, ate right, worked out daily and showed back up weighing 216 pounds.

John Fowler was also recognized by our league’s coaches and media members at the end of the year, and I don’t think there was a more deserving honor for an individual than John winning the Defensive Player of the Year award.

John’s ability to defend multi-positional players is what made him so special in his two years here. He can guard anyone from the 1-4, whether it be bigger forwards or point guards. He has such a passion for what he does on the defensive side of the ball, and that all comes down to heart and toughness.

We’ll definitely miss those four seniors next year, but I’m optimistic about what we have back and the players we’ve signed. One of the guys we will be counting on next year is Solomon Bozeman, and I can tell you that he’s been spending a tremendous amount of time in the Jack Stephens Center working on his game.

Solomon transferred to UALR and sat out last season after playing two years in the BIG EAST Conference for South Florida. A redshirt year is difficult for anyone. You go from playing and getting excited about game preparation, to sitting on the sideline and watching. With that said, I think Solomon has made the best use of his redshirt year of any player I’ve had.

Coach Barron is extremely excited about Solomon’s enthusiasm every day he comes into the weight room, and his passion to get bigger and stronger. I think we’ll see that hard work pay big dividends next fall. Solomon is a true gym rat. Being a coach’s son, he lives, breathes and sleeps basketball.

Speaking of next season, I think we are really close to being able to finish up the schedule. I would hope that we can have it done before we coaches go on the road in July. The most exciting thing is that we have Memphis coming back to Little Rock. I said it when we first announced the series with Coach Calipari, but for him to agree to a home-and-home series, coming off a Final Four appearance, was huge for our program.

We’ve also got games this year against Missouri State, Oral Roberts and Louisiana Tech, each of which is in the second year of a four-year series. Missouri State and ORU will both be coming to the Jack Stephens Center this year, which is further evidence of our goal to get attractive, regional games against quality opponents at home. We’re trying to play as many home-and-home series’ that will be appealing to our fans as we can.

Postseason play is where we all want to go. The ultimate destination being the NCAA Tournament and that is where we are still striving to go. Though we haven’t accomplished that goal yet, I’m really proud of what this program has accomplished in my six years as head coach. If you look at overall wins in the Sun Belt Conference, this program ranks third in overall wins with 105, behind only South Alabama (112) and Western Kentucky (136). We are also third in victories in conference play as well with 58, behind South Alabama (63) and WKU (72).

In addition to winning four division titles in six years, the first two of which came as members of the East Division, these four seniors were responsible for us posting back-to-back 20-win seasons, which is something that hasn’t happened at UALR since the 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons.

This program’s achievements extend into the classroom as well. Every player who has exhausted his eligibility during my time as head coach has graduated. LaMarvon Jackson graduated in the spring and that 100 percent graduation rate will stay the same after Shane Edwards, Brandon Patterson and John Fowler graduate this summer. Our multi-year APR of 962 ranks second in the Sun Belt Conference and is well above the national average of 933.

Until next time, everybody make sure to get out and enjoy your summer.

December 9, 2008

Seven games into the season, I’m really excited about our basketball team being 6-1, especially with four of those games played on the road. Our main thing is to make sure we stay hungry as a team. We can’t have complacency set in. That is a thing that every coach fights, and with us having the leadership we have from our seniors I don’t see that happening.

The most obvious example of our strong senior leadership this season is John Fowler. I don’t know if I’ve had a guy who consistently plays as hard as he does day in and day out. So often we talk about what guys bring to the table on game day, but John Fowler brings that high intensity level and effort every time he steps on the court, whether its individual improvement, practice or games, and you just don’t see that with most guys.

Brandon Patterson is another senior who has shown strong leadership qualities and given us length on the perimeter from a defensive standpoint. He has also been very solid with the basketball and is our only guy with a positive assist-to-turnover ratio at this point. The leadership that those two guys have shown by example, more so than being vocal leaders, has been invaluable.

The most noticeable example of their leadership through example following last night’s win at Oral Roberts, is the job John Fowler did with his assignment of guarding Robert Jarvis, who was averaging 20 points per game and scored 34 against Missouri earlier this year. Jarvis is a prolific scorer who can really shoot the ball from deep range, and John did a great job defending him, limiting his catches and contesting on the three-point line. When John picked up his second foul, Brandon picked up Jarvis and he ended up going 2-for-13 from the floor and 1-for-9 from three-point range. That’s the kind of things I’m talking about from a leadership standpoint with those two guys.

We went into the ORU game keying on Jarvis, Dominique Morrison and Kyron Stokes. All three of those guys can really score, with Jarvis being their top guy, and those three were a combined 3-for-23 from the floor. I think that was the biggest key to our win.

Shane Edwards has also taken on a greater role for us this season. The biggest key with Shane is him being aggressive. When’s he’s aggressive and not fading away and shying away from contact, he has been very good, as he was to start the season at Cal Poly and Pepperdine. In the Harding exhibition game, I felt like he avoided contact and was worried about getting his shot blocked. Shane is a real important element for this basketball team. When Shane plays well, we are effective offensively. We need to get production from that four spot, as we did last night at Oral Roberts.

With the win over ORU, we’ve now won games against the preseason favorites in the Summit League and the Missouri Valley Conference. Creighton was picked to win the MVC this season and has been a top-25 program over the past several years under Dana Altman. We all know the phenomenal job he has done, and that was definitely a quality win for our program. It remains to be seen how good of a win that will be for us, based on what we do from here on. You always want to position yourself where you have a quality wins and “top 50” wins and I feel certain Creighton will end up in that range.

We’ve got three of our next four games at home heading into the Christmas break, and we really want finish with some positive momentum. There isn’t a game on our schedule that you can pencil in as a definite win, so we need to continue to be mentally prepared and keep an edge about us.

Wright State has there top two scorers back from last year’s team, which won 21 games. They are extremely well coached, and even though they’ve struggled early, they have good experience and scoring on their team. Northern Illinois is a team that we definitely have respect for, having lost to them last season at their place. Ricardo Patton does a great job and will have his guys ready to play.

On Dec. 17 we play a Memphis team coming off a Final Four appearance and a national runner-up finish. John Calipari is one of the best coaches in country and has one of the most talented teams around, so we know what an unbelievable challenge that will be at their place.

We finish off the four-game stretch with Arkansas State, our biggest Sun Belt Conference rival. John Brady has those guys playing extremely well right now, and they are defending as well as anyone in our league.

I’m hopeful that we will be able to continue to build on what we have done up to this point, and go into the Christmas break with some momentum.

I think it is really important from a scheduling standpoint for our guys to spend as much time with their families over the Christmas break as possible, and we always managed to do that even if it means losing a practice or two. We always try to get our guys home at least two days before Christmas, and have them come back the day after. I don’t want any of our guys traveling on Christmas Day and we’ve never had to do that in my six years as head coach.

This year, our guys will go home on Dec. 21 and will be able to stay with their families through Christmas Day, returning to Little Rock on Dec. 26. We play Rice on Dec. 28, so from a coaching standpoint you may look at it and say ‘well, we could use another day of practice in preparation for that game’, but I think the benefits of them coming back rejuvenated, fresh and anxious to get back to work after spending a good amount of quality time with their families far outweighs the negative of losing a practice day.

Rice will be our final non-conference game of the season, as we head into Sun Belt Conference play full-time beginning Dec. 31 against ULM. I think our league is wide open this season, as it has been in past years.

We coaches voted Middle Tennessee the preseason favorite in the Sun Belt at the league’s annual Media Days in Hot Springs. They’ve got a lot of experienced players back and are an extremely well coached team under Kermit Davis.

You can look at the preseason voting by the coaches and make an argument for any numbers of teams. You’ve got North Texas with Collin Dennis and Josh White back. Louisiana-Lafayette has a ton of young, talented skill players who can really shoot the basketball. South Alabama definitely warrants consideration with the job Ronnie Arrow and his staff does. Western Kentucky showed how capable they are with their win over No. 3 Louisville, and Ken McDonald has done a great job already. Often times the transition can be tough for new coaches, but it hasn’t been for Ken and John Brady at Arkansas State.

That’s all for now. Check back for future updates and make sure to keep up with all the latest in Trojan Basketball at www.ualrtrojans.com.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours.
 

October 1, 2008

Fall practice is right around the corner, and everyone at UALR is gearing up for another exciting season as we try to win our fourth Sun Belt Conference division championship in five years.

One of the most important things for the continued progression of our program is our guys not being satisfied with where we were last spring. We continually stress to our players how important it is from them to stay hungry and keep an edge about themselves.

Strength coach John Barron has been a huge asset to our program over the last three years in the development of our players. He is very enthusiastic with our guys and is someone who always looks at the glass as half full. He is all about helping young people achieve their goals, and I have never been around a guy who gets more excited than John does about players showing improvement in their workouts.

We have guys like Solomon Bozeman and Matt Mouzy who are dunking the basketball, when I never would have thought that possible a year ago. A lot of the credit has to go to the work ethic of those guys, but credit also has to be given to coach Barron for his role in their development.

John is a phenomenal strength coach and our guys have made great strides during the offseason. Shane Edwards, for example, showed up from junior college weighing 185 pounds, and came back this offseason weighing 214 pounds. That is a perfect example of a guy buying into your strength and conditioning program, and your strength coach doing a superb job.

Our guys, led by our four seniors, made sure we had a great offseason. I really think that has continued throughout our fall workouts in weights, conditioning and individual improvement. We have had an outstanding offseason and that is a testament to the leadership of our seniors John Fowler, Brandon Patterson, Shane Edwards and LaMarvon Jackson. I’m really excited to get going with the start of practice coming up. I like our guys’ work ethic and togetherness, and I think they have all competed extremely well in their individual improvement sessions.

I’m also really excited about the five new guys we brought into our program. They all bring something unique to our team from a basketball standpoint. Curtis Jackson has an ability to shoot the ball really well from the three-point line. Lionel Foster is a heady point guard with strength and size. He’s not someone we brought in and have to worry about adding strength and weight. He can defend the basketball and really sets guys up from a point guard standpoint.

Courtney Jackson is a guy who, had we not signed him in the early period, we more than likely wouldn’t have gotten him. Courtney had phenomenal numbers in high school. He averaged 23 points and 15 rebounds as a senior and was an All-State and an All-Region selection. He brings a unique ability to the table, to play as hard as he plays as a freshman. I’ve seen that in individual workouts and conditioning. So often there is a transition period from high school to division I basketball, but I feel like he is someone who will be in the mix early on in his career. He is also very explosive, can rebound the ball and can score from different areas on the floor.

Wayne brings length to our front line, which is something we really didn’t have last year. He led the West Texas Junior College Athletic Conference in blocked shots last year, which is pretty impressive considering that league produced the past two junior college national champions. Solomon is a young man that we are very familiar with, having tried to recruit him out of high school. He’s transferring in after two years at South Florida and will have two years left after sitting out this season. He has a very high basketball I.Q., values the basketball and has the ability to shoot the ball from the three-point line and also get to the foul line. You like guys who can get to the foul line and shoot a good percentage, and he has the potential to be an 85-90 percent free-throw shooter.

This is the start of my ninth year at UALR, and it is the first time that we have had a schedule where we haven’t played a non-Division I school. As I’ve been told numerous times by longtime UALR basketball supporters, this very well could be the best schedule in the history of this program. We have 11 non-conference games that will really challenge our basketball team in preparation for Sun Belt Conference play.

This is not a schedule I would have put together a year ago when we had eight new guys on our roster who hadn’t played a minute for us. In contrast to last year’s team, this season we have nine guys back who saw playing time last season.

There isn’t a single game on our schedule that you can look at and feel like you can pencil in a win, and there are some definite marquee names, the most obvious of which is Memphis, which is coming off a Final Four appearance and a national runner-up finish. We’ve also got a game against a Creighton program which has made 11-straight postseason appearances, and we’re starting a home-and-home series with Oral Roberts, which has won 20-or-more games each of the last four seasons and made three-straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

I’m really excited about the schedule we’re playing this season and how it will challenge us night in and night out. We’re playing an exhibition game in Hot Springs, Ark. on Nov. 9, then open the regular season with two games out in California. That’s all for now. Make sure to follow all the latest Trojan basketball news at www.ualrtrojans.com.