LITTLE ROCK — Steve Shields settled into a front-row chair inside Summit Arena in Hot Springs almost a year ago, watching just a few feet away as UALR’s women’s basketball team played Florida Atlantic in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
Shields’ UALR men’s team didn’t have a game that day after being upset the previous night by Western Kentucky, when the Trojans let a late lead slip away to end their season.
Instead, Shields talked about what his team needed for a better showing this year.
His No. 1 priority: Big, physical guards who could defend the Sun Belt Conference’s best scorers.
It took UALR five months to get one to campus, but halfway through this season, Leroy Isler has settled into that role.
“I think he’s embraced it,” Shields said. “That was the whole point when we recruited him, that he could be a guy that could guard the best perimeter guy night in and night out.”
It was a role UALR never filled last year, even though it went 12-4 in the Sun Belt and captured Shields’ fifth division title. But it cost the Trojans in the quarter-finals of the Sun Belt Tournament, when Western Kentucky freshman guard Derrick Gordon scored 25 points and had 15 rebounds to help upset UALR.
A few months later, UALR assistant coach Robert Lee was at a junior-college showcase in St. Louis when he saw Isler, a Brooklyn native who had just completed his sophomore season at Lee College in Baytown, Texas.
“The funny thing was, when [Lee] first saw me, I wasn’t playing defense,” Isler said. “I was scoring the ball most of the time. I was trying to do that at the camp, I’m not going to lie.”
When the two first talked, Isler recalled, Lee brought up UALR’s need for a perimeter defender, which he had heard was Isler’s forte. Isler and Lee were sold on each other, and the guard arrived on UALR’s campus in late August after finishing summer courses, a needed requirement that Isler said turned off other schools.
“Most schools don’t want to wait. They want to get the recruiting process over with,” said Isler, who also spoke with Western Kentucky, Arkansas State, North Texas and others. “UALR stuck by me, and I came here.”
Shields is glad he did.
Isler has started 17 of the past 18 games going into tonight’s 7 p.m. game against Florida Atlantic (10-10, 5-4) at Little Rock’s Jack Stephens Center and is averaging 7.1 points and 3.5 rebounds in 25.1 minutes per game for the Trojans (12-9, 6-4).
But it’s his perimeter defense that has stuck out to Shields.
Isler limited Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Jordan Aaron to 13 points, eight fewer than his season average at the time, during a November victory in Little Rock. In two games against Western Kentucky, he has held guard T.J. Price, who averages 14.1 points per game, to 14 points combined. Isler, 6-5 with a wide frame and long arms, also has 12 steals in the past four games and his35 steals are third-most in the conference.
He could be facing his toughest test tonight. Florida Atlantic’s Greg Gantt, a 6-2 senior, leads the Sun Belt with an average of 22.5 points per game, has scored 22 or more points in 10 consecutive games and has made 41.6 percent of his three-pointers (59 of 142).
Isler may be the perfect guy to chase Gantt around the perimeter and prevent him from driving to the basket.
“You see the guards in our league, Gantt is the same type,” Shields said. “He’s 6-2, strong, physical, long arms. Those are the guys you see have success in our league. [Isler] is going to have to guard him.”
Isler’s offensive game is still evolving. He scored 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting in Saturday’s victory over Western Kentucky, but that came two nights after going 0 for 5 and failing to score in a loss at Middle Tennessee.
For now, though, scoring takes a back seat to lock down defense.
“The offense, if it comes, it comes for me,” Isler said. “Everybody likes to score, but not everybody likes to play defense. ... I can live with [my offense] and playing the defense that I’m playing.”
TODAY’S GAMES All times Central
Arkansas State at Troy, 7 p.m.
Florida Atlantic at UALR, 7 p.m.
Fla. International at La.-Lafayette, 7 p.m.
Middle Tennessee at North Texas, 7 p.m.
W. Kentucky at South Alabama, 7:05 p.m.
SATURDAY’S GAMES
Troy at La.-Monroe, 4 p.m.
W. Kentucky at Middle Tennessee, 5 p.m.
UALR at North Texas, 7 p.m.
Florida Atlantic at Arkansas State, 7:05 p.m.
SUNDAY’S GAME
Fla. International at South Alabama, 4:05 p.m.
UALR vs. Florida Atlantic
WHEN 7 p.m. Central today WHERE Jack Stephens Center, Little Rock RECORDS UALR 12-9, 6-4 Sun Belt Conference; Florida Atlantic 10-10, 5-4 SERIES UALR leads 4-3 RADIO KABZ-FM, 103.7, in Little Rock INTERNET ualrtrojans.com
Sports, Pages 19 on 01/24/2013