Coach Shields at Media Days

BURN THE HORSE
UALR Coach Steve Shields was first up at Sun Belt Conference Media Days today. Here's some of what he had to say:
ON THE CURRENT PLAYERS: "We've our three leading scorers back, all of whom were seniors. I'm encouraged about their senior leadership in the offseason and feel like they've done an outstanding job of leading this team. In my opinion, you're only as good as your senior leadership."
IMPROVING REBOUNDING: "That is a concern. We had a negative rebound margin last year for the first time in seven seasons. That was an area of concern in or recruiting."
GUS LEEPER'S PROGRESS: "Every day you see guy like Gus Leeper making progress (Shields compares him to JakeYancey). He's been like a sponge. Every day he hangs on Joe Kleine."
NEW SCHEDULING CRITERIA: "The key is to be able to get more home nonconference games than road nonconference games. It's proven over the years that you win a good percentage of home games in Division I basketball. I think that's the key right now. That's why I've always been a proponent of playing 18 conference games. It builds in an extra home game."

His session ended kind of awkwardly. He was asked to talk about the virtues of Louisiana-Lafayette's new coach Bob Marlin, who is one of Shields' best friends. Nothing like having to talk up a guy that you're trying to recruit against. And then he was asked about Will Neighbour (from a student reporter). Of course, he couldn't comment on that.