Most are familiar with how the UALR men's basketball team ended its season last year.
The Trojans won a school record 30 games, the last of which was a dramatic, come-from-behind victory over Purdue in double overtime at the NCAA Tournament. The stage to which they reached made it so few could miss what the team became.
But looking back, players said one of the keys was the start, which began in practices at Little Rock's Jack Stephens Center void of big talk or expectations, but rather on immediate tasks.
"How we do it is go day-by-day," senior forward Maurius Hill said. "That's how we did it last year, and it led to us having a great season. With us just going day-by-day, that could lead to us having even more wins than last year."
UALR officially began the follow-up to last year's Sun Belt Conference championship season with a practice Monday on the practice court at the Stephens Center. Rather than bold talk about the start of Coach Wes Flanigan's tenure being as successful as the lone season under Coach Chris Beard, the Trojans are taking it slow, just as they did a year ago.
Flanigan said he was pleased with his team's energy Monday, and said the role of guards Deshawn Watkins and Marcus Johnson Jr., along with the progress of forwards Lis Shoshi and Jalen Jackson, will determine the team's fate more than anything else. Flanigan, promoted last March after Beard left for UNLV and eventually Texas Tech, has a base-level of expectation for his team, but it doesn't involve the NCAA Tournament.
"We always want to talk about, first and foremost, giving ourselves a chance to compete for a Sun Belt Conference championship," Flanigan said, after his first practice as head coach at any level. "Then, after that, we can see what happens."
That's not to say that the Trojans aren't wanting to go back to the NCAA Tournament for a sixth time or that they don't think they can get there.
"Everybody wants to go back to the NCAA Tournament," Shoshi said.
But they realize what it will take this time.
That starts, Flanigan said, with Shoshi, Jackson and Johnson, UALR's three most productive players returning from last year.
"The biggest question is what type of role can Lis, Jalen and [Johnson] handle?" he said. "And then the rest of it can kind of feel its way out. But once we figure those three things out, we'll work from there."
Johnson was second on the team at 12.7 points per game last season while making 46.9 percent of his three-pointers. But most of the time he took a back seat to the production of Josh Hagins, who averaged a team-best 13.1 points and earned first-team all-Sun Belt honors. With Hagins' exit, Flanigan said he wants Johnson to be more versatile, while splitting a point guard role with Watkins, who sat out last season after transferring from Florida State.
Flanigan said Johnson and Watkins aren't necessarily competing for a spot, but rather trying to see who fits best where.
"They're both going to play major minutes," he said. "I think the thing becomes what do we think is the best combination for us winning games, and we'll make that decision as we get into it."
Shoshi said he'd like to be more of an offensive threat inside, a role he didn't have to fill last season with the presence of Roger Woods, who averaged 10.1 points per game while being named third-team all-Sun Belt. Shoshi was fourth on the team in minutes (22.6) last year, while averaging 7.2 points, fifth.
"It was a different role," he said. "I should have been a little bit more aggressive, but it didn't hurt our team. I was fine with my role, because we were winning. And this year it's got to change."
Overall philosophies won't change under Flanigan. The Trojans will still run motion offense and play man-to-man defense, but he said he'd like to be more aggressive on both sides. But a determination on how much so, like everything else, will come in time.
"The main focus right now is getting better each and every day in practice and once we start playing games, it's that each game on the schedule is the most important," Flanigan said. "We'll take it one step at a time."
Sports on 10/04/2016