Sports

UAM OPENS SEASON WITH FIRST PRACTICE

By Sean Saunders/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 11:49 PM CDT

While NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams don’t get to officially start practicing until Friday, Division II gets a chance to start early, and Arkansas-Monticello coach Mike Newell is taking full advantage of it.

The Boll Weevils, fresh off a 20-9 season and a fourth-place finish in the Gulf South Conference Western Division, kick off their 2009-10 campaign when they hold their first practice today at Steelman Fieldhouse.

“Every day is important this early in the season,” Newell said. “It doesn’t even seem long enough. When you get right down to it, we play Wichita State four weeks from (Wednesday).”

Today marks the start of a gelling process for a squad that lost all but four of its members from last year’s team. Of those four returners, only two of them have more than two years of experience at UAM, led by senior Derek Easter.

This year is also the first time the Weevils have been able to take advantage of their latest training tool. While they aren’t able to work on sets and defenses as a team until today, they are able to do individual workouts and conditioning as long as the players are on campus. And the Weevils, along with the Cotton Blossoms basketball squad, were able to use the new indoor practice facility for conditioning.

“We just finished with our offseason conditioning (Wednesday),” Newell said. “It’s been really nice to be able to use that building. Everybody’s been using it.”

The Weevils timed things just right to be able to hold every practice in Steelman Fieldhouse. If practice began at the end of last month, then they would have not been able to use their gymnasium. That’s because the gym at Steelman Fieldhouse had to be closed down as a caution after Convoy Leslie-Cotton Boll Stadium had to be closed down for more than a week Sept. 17 to fix fatigue-related cracks in the light poles.

Newell said Drew Central let him use its gym for individual workouts.

The Weevils kick off the season with a home game against Crowley’s Ridge College on Nov. 16 before traveling to Wichita, Kan., to take on the Wichita State Shockers as part of the College Basketball Experience Classic.

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