LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas State and UALR women’s basketball teams are sitting about where their peers thought they would be at this point in the season - battling for a division title with less than three weeks left in the season.

But the positions of the two teams have flipped from preseason expectations, but only after their coaches made adjustments to some of their most ardent principles.

First-place Arkansas State, which scrapped its motion offense a week before the season started, hosts a UALR team that didn’t find its defensive footing until Coach Joe Foley used his eighth different starting lineup five games ago.

Tipoff is at 7:05 tonight at the Convocation Center in Jonesboro.

The Red Wolves hold a 1 1/2 game lead over the Trojans in the Sun Belt Conference West Division standings, and the teams will finish the regular season with a March 2 meeting in Little Rock.

“We went out on a limb and just changed everything,” ASU Coach Brian Boyer said of a move he admitted was a risk. “But at the same time, I don’t know if it’s any more of a risk than to try to force a system onto a team it doesn’t really fit.”

Boyer-coached ASU teams have ran a motion offense in each of the past 13 seasons. He said he never even considered a change. Then about three weeks into practice this season, he realized his team’s strength was in the post with junior Jane Morrill.

About Nov. 1, he said, he did away with the motion for an offense that centered around the post. The payoff took awhile - the Red Wolves started 1-6. But after getting through a difficult non-conference schedule, they won three consecutive games in December, then seven consecutive games to close January.

The latter stretch propelled ASU to the top of the West Division, as the Red Wolves scored 71 points or more in consecutive victories over Louisiana-Monroe, Troy, Florida Atlantic and South Alabama. Their 43.4-percent field-goal shooting is tied for first in the Sun Belt with UALR.

Foley, a 26-year coaching veteran, said it took guts for Boyer to make the move, something he didn’t think he could do.

“You can’t teach this old dog new tricks,” said Foley, still dedicated to his motion offense.

That’s not to say he didn’t have to make alterations to his own team.

A 70-61 loss to Western Kentucky on Jan. 19 dropped UALR to 4-6 in the conference. It was the Trojans’ fourth consecutive loss and sixth in its previous seven.

So Foley inserted a group of starters - guards Taylor Ford and Ka’Nesheia Cobbins, and forwards Kiera Clark, Shanity James and Hannah Fohne - who guard better than they score for a Jan. 23 victory over Florida Atlantic, a move that kick-started a string of five consecutive victories.

That meant sending Taylor Gault, UALR’s leading scorer at 15.4 points per game, to the bench. But the defensiveminded group has helped the Trojans hold opponents to 42.2 points per game and 31.5 percent shooting over their past five games.

It was a similar move Foley used last year when he inserted then-senior forward Britteni Williams into a lineup that was struggling defensively. That move helped spark a run to a fifth consecutive division title and a third consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance.

“You try to get a good offensive team on the floor and hope that you can teach them defense,” Foley said. “Sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn’t. It didn’t work last year, and this year it didn’t work either.”

Sun Belt coaches picked UALR to win another division title this year, and ASU was picked to finish second.

The roles have been reversed to this point, but ASU still has to play UALR twice, Troy, which upset Middle Tennessee on Saturday, Louisiana-Monroe and North Texas, which is in third place in the West.

“We’re realistic enough to know that we still have a tough remainder left here,” said Boyer, whose team hasn’t won a division title since 2004. “By no means are we in perfect shape. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Sports, Pages 26 on 02/13/2013