Point guard spot not settled yet

Thursday, January 10, 2013

— Another week, another issue with Steve Shields’ point guards for the UALR men’s basketball team.

Freshman John Gillon, who has started 12 of 17 games for the Trojans this season, suffered a sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee in last week’s home victory over Western Kentucky. He sat out Saturday’s loss at Troy and won’t play when UALR (9-8, 3-3 Sun Belt Conference) hosts North Texas (6-10, 1-4) at 7 p.m. today at the Jack Stephens Center and might not play Saturday against Florida International.

But Shields insists he isn’t too worried, even if the point guard spot that includes a rotation of three freshmen isn’t settled more than halfway through the season.

“That’s part of team sports. That’s part of Division I basketball,” Shields said. “Every team has injuries. That’s why depth is important. We’re anxious to get John back, but in the meantime, I’m not giving any excuses to my team.”

Three players have started at point guard for the Trojans this year. Freshman Josh Hagins started the first two games, then Gillon started the next 11. Then Kemy Osse, who was recruited as a shooting guard, started a Dec. 22 loss at South Alabama when Gillon and Hagins both missed the team bus to the Mitchell Center.

Hagins was back in the starting lineup in last week’s victory over Western Kentucky that snapped UALR’s three-game losing streak, and then had his best game in Saturday’s loss at Troy after Gillon was injured.

Shields said he would like to be playing North Texas, which was picked by coaches to win the Sun Belt West but has struggled to a 1-4 league start, with a full roster. But Hagins is making the most of his second opportunity.

“It’s tough losing your spot,” said Hagins, who is averaging 6.5 points per game. “But everybody has to go through it eventually. I just had to re-adjust and come back.”

Hagins said it took him almost the entire first half of the season to get a feel for the differences of college basketball. He said he lacked confidence and played passive and nervous.

But he got good feedback from coaches after he played a season-high 33 minutes against Troy in which he scored 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Hagins said he isn’t putting too much pressure on himself for tonight’s game when he’ll be likely asked to do just as much.

“I just have to do my part, basically,” he said. “I just have to play a little more minutes, just have to play tougher on D. Just try to make it easier for everybody else.”

If that produces a victory for UALR, it would follow a loss to a Troy team that had yet to win a Sun Belt game. That came two days after a victory over a Western Kentucky team that had not lost a conference game.

Stopping an opponent’s run has been the Trojans’ biggest issue in its league losses. They led Troy 49-39 with 11:21 left, but a 13-2 run over the next four minutes erased that.

“It gets flipped on us quicker than any team I’ve had here,” Shields said. “We’ve got to be able to play through some of those runs and have the mental toughness to get stops.”

Sports, Pages 19 on 01/10/2013