Division I report

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Trio picks up tempo for UCA

Central Arkansas has eight newcomers on this year’s roster, but so far three freshman guards have been vital in the Sugar Bears’ 4-1 Southland Conference start.

Brianna Mullins, Maggie Proffitt and Kelsey McClure were expected to get valuable minutes, Coach Sandra Rushing said. Proffitt and Mullins are averaging 23.8 and 21.1 minutes per game, respectively.

“They’ve met the challenge so far,” said Rushing, whose Sugar Bears are 10-6 overall in her second season. “They’ve picked up the pace of the game.”

Mullins (9.9 points per game, 3.2 rebounds per game) scored a career-high 25 points in the Sugar Bears’ 67-54 victory at Abilene Christian on Saturday. The former Nevada standout started the first 10 games before recently returning to the starting lineup the past two games at Incarnate Word and Abilene Christian.

Proffitt, from Columbus, Miss., is UCA’s second-leading scorer with 10.3 points per game and has started the past seven games. McClure, from Muskogee, Okla., tied her career high with 11 points last Saturday.

Rushing said she likes the emergence of her younger players as the Sugar Bears enter late January.

“The freshman guards feel comfortable when they’re on the floor together,” she said.

UCA faces Northwestern (La.) State (10-7, 3-2) today at the Farris Center in Conway and Stephen F. Austin (10-7, 4-1) on Saturday. The Sugar Bears are tied with Stephen F. Austin atop the Southland standings, but Rushing doesn’t want the Sugar Bears thinking too far ahead despite their solid conference start.

“We still have a lot of basketball to play,” Rushing said.

ASU WOMEN Guard help

The Arkansas State women’s basketball team finds itself where it wants to be through six Sun Belt Conference games: On top of the league standings.

The Red Wolves (11-7, 5-1) have gotten there partly by a drastic improvement in rebounding. ASU Coach Brian Boyer said he didn’t think his team was great in that area in November, and he is still a bit perplexed with a plus-5.1 rebounding margin that is tops in the Sun Belt.

That came after the two front court starters, Jane Morril and Jalen O’Bannon, returned from a team that had a minus-2.3 rebounding margin last season.

The jump, Boyer said, has come from a group of guards who are averaging a combined 13.0 rebounds per game. Aundrea Gamble, the leading scorer at 18.3 points per game, averages 6.2 rebounds while Brittney Gill adds 3.9 and Hanna Qedan 3.6 per game.

“Our front line isn’t really that much better than last year, but our guards have been really good at it,” Boyer said. “Gamble is a good rebounding guard, Brittney Gill has a real knack for it. … As the season has gone on, it’s pleasantly become a strength for us.”

UALR MEN Three spree

The good news for UALR is that Texas State has made eight three-pointers combined in its past two games. The bad news is that hasn’t mattered much over the past week for the Trojans.

A defensive lapse - defending the three-pointer - that Coach Steve Shields didn’t expect has emerged as UALR heads into tonight’s Sun Belt Conference game against the Bobcats.

The Trojans let Troy make10 threes in a 75-62 loss on Jan. 11, then Western Kentucky made 13 of 29 in a Jan. 16 overtime victory before Georgia State made 15 of 34 in a 99-73 victory this past Saturday.

That’s 38 made three-pointers against UALR in the past three games. In six Sun Belt Conference games, UALR’s opponents have made 57 three-pointers (9.5 per game). In 12 nonconference games, the Trojans have given up 40 three-pointers (3.3 per game).

It’s caused Shields to make an in-season adjustment to his defensive priorities.

“You can’t win consistently with that,” Shields said. “We’ve got to have more urgency coming in transition. … There’s different things, but they’re all adding up to a bunch of threes made and we’ve got to get that corrected.”

Sports, Pages 19 on 01/23/2014