The University of Central Arkansas Bears are averaging 16 turnovers a game, certainly a contributing factor to a four-game losing streak that was broken Saturday night with a comfortable victory over McNeese State.
Interestingly, the Bears are third in the Southland Conference in fewest turnovers per game.
The Southland Conference leads the other NCAA Division I conferences in steals per game.
"It may look like we're struggling, and I think we are turning the ball over too much, but some of that is the product of the basketball being played in this league," said UCA coach Rand Chappell at the weekly Bearbackers luncheon on Monday. "I think, in athleticism, our league is in the upper half of the whole nation. Coaches in this league like to press and play high-risk basketball, which is going to create turnovers."
Lamar, which edged UCA in overtime Thursday, is undefeated in Southland play while Texas-Arlington has reeled off four straight victories since UCA upset it in Conway and has taken command of the West Division.
"It's a very competitive league and our guys are competing well," Chappell said of the Bears, who are 2-4 in the Southland but all but one of those games have gone down the to final few minutes.
The UCA men (12-8) have two road games this week with East Division rivals, Southeastern Louisiana (3-2 in the Southland) on Thursday and Nicholls State (1-4 but with an upset of Stephen F. Austin) on Saturday afternoon.
"Southeastern Louisiana is 3-2 but has played four road games so that's a pretty good record considering that," Chappell said. "They are a lot like us in that they have done a good job of winning games they are supposed to. Nicholls State played North Carolina within 10 and that was one of the best games I've seen all year. For us to think, they are not very good would be wrong."
Although Chappell said the injury is healing quickly, it is likely forward Durrell Nevels will probably be out at least another week with a foot injury. The coach said he cannot point to any specific incident in which the injury occurred, but it was likely a stress-related injury over time.
"When he started complaining that it was really hurting him before a Tuesday practice, the X-rays showed that some healing had begun, which would seem to indicate it had been actually injured earlier," Chappell said.
Chappell praised the job inside men Landrell Brewer and Drew Haymaker have done in Nevels' absence.
"Before the season, I'm thinking the worst thing that could happen to us would be to lose Durrell Nevels for any reason," Chappell said. "But we've had players pick up the slack. Brewer has gone from about a 17-minute guy to a 30-minute guy and he did a good job Saturday on McNeese's Jarvis Bradley, who is an all-conference player. Bradley scored 12 points but eight of those were free throws."
Guards Nate Bowie, York Sims and Marcus Pillow scored 48 of the Bears' 57 points Saturday.
"We've relied on our guards all year to do the bulk of the scoring," Chappell said. "Our scoring inside is more second-chance baskets and most of those guys will put up about eight points a game. We're relying on them for defense and rebounding.
"Nate, as a senior should do, is playing with great consistency and he's playing the most minutes of anybody in our conference and is third in scoring," Chappell added.
The most notable improvement for the Bears against McNeese was on defense.
"You can do certain things about how you play, but I think it was just a matter of us going out and doing it," he said. "All year, we have done a pretty good job on the good guys for the other team, the top scorers. We have not done such a good job with the lesser guys. I tell the players if they are playing Division I college basketball, they are pretty good. The guys who don't have as good of averages may have been 20 points a game scorers in high school."
SUGAR BEARS
Sugar Bear coach Ron Marvel said he saw a glimmer or two in his team's loss to Lamar on Thursday that gave him hope that UCA would end its 11-game losing streak Saturday against McNeese State at Jennings, La.
"We fell behind 12-2 early, but we picked it up after that something we haven't been able to do and tied the score at halftime," Marvel said. "The second half, we went brain dead for awhile, but what we didn't do was quit. We kept plugging and really stayed in the game all the way with a chance to win the ballgame.
"Our players felt pretty good afterward that we have a chance against McNeese, which just had four wins itself."
UCA (3-16) hosts Southeastern Louisiana (7-11) and Nicholls State (4-12) this week. Saturday's game against Nicholls State at the Farris Center has been moved from a 6 p.m. start to a 4 p.m. start because of travel logistics for the Colonels.
"Southeastern Louisiana is pretty good with some tall players who play good fundamental basketball; we'll have to play pretty well against them to compete," Marvel said. "We should be able to play with Nicholls State."
