CONWAY - The men’s and women’s basketball programs at Central Arkansas will look very different this season.
Men’s Coach Corliss Williamson left in August to take an assistant coaching position with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, while three-time Southland Conference player of the year Megan Herbert has exhausted her eligibility with the Sugar Bears.
Williamson’s top assistant, Clarence Finley, will serve as the Bears’ interim coach this season.
One thing Finley wants to change with the Bears is their defensive philosophy. Last season, the Bears allowed a Southland-high average of 78.6 points per game. That ranked 343rd in the nation, ahead of only Fairleigh Dickson (79.0) and Longwood (81.4).
“We haven’t been able to get a stop,” Finley said. “That’s why we’re working on situations. Last year, we were trying to score. This year, it’s us trying to get a stop.”
Finley will be without his leading returning scorer, senior guard LaQuentin Miles, who is academically ineligible. Miles, from Jacksonville, averaged 14.9 points and 5.0 rebounds per game last season and will be eligible to return Dec. 21 against Charleston Southern.
Miles and senior guard DeShone McClure (5.9 ppg, 1.8 rpg) are the two returning starters from a 13-17 team that advanced to the school’s first Southland Conference Tournament.
Guards Oliver Wells, Dauoda Berete and Jalen Jackson and forward Terry Tidwell are expected to start in the season opener Nov. 12 against Hendrix College at the Farris Center. Jackson signed with UCA before the 2012-2013 season but was academically ineligible. Tidwell played at UCA in 2010-2012 but sat out last season for personal reasons.
The Bears were picked to finish ninth (coaches) and 10th (sports information directors) out of 12 teams in the Southland preseason polls, but Finley hopes his team will buy into his defensive philosophy and do better than that.
“If our kids come to work each and every day, we can compete in the Southland, but we’re going to have to do it as a team, both defensively and offensively,” Finley said. “We’re not going to be able to shoot it as quickly as we did last year.”
Coach Sandra Rushing will attempt to move forward in her second season as UCA’s women’s coach without Herbert, the team’s leading scorer each of the past four seasons.
Senior center Courtney Duever is the top returner who averaged 13.6 points and 8.8 rebounds a game last season. She is joined by senior guard Micah Rice, who missed most of last season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, and junior forward Tyisha Amos. Duever, Rice, Amos and sophomore guard Jameka Watkins are the Sugar Bears’ only returners with eight newcomers on the roster.
UCA struggled in Rushing’s first year, going 15-15 and losing to Stephen F. Austin in the first round of the Southland Tournament.
“It’s a brand new team,” said Rushing, whose team was picked to finish sixth (coaches) and seventh (SIDs) in the preseason polls. “When you’re rebuilding, it’s very challenging. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very exciting. I want some W’s. I want to win.”
Sports, Pages 27 on 11/03/2013