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LOCATION: Birmingham, AL
CONFERENCE: Conference USA (National)
LAST SEASON: 20-12 (.625)
CONFERENCE RECORD: 10-6 (1st)
STARTERS LOST/RETURNING: 3/2
NICKNAME: Blazers
COLORS: Green, Gold & White
HOMECOURT: Bartow Arena (8,500)
COACH: Murry Bartow
record at school 59-38 (3 years)
career record 59-38 (3 years)
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ASSISTANTS: Thomas Johnson (Montevallo '77)
Andy Kennedy (UAB '91)
Matt Bowen (Indiana '95))
TEAM WINS: (last 5 years) 14-16-18-21-20
RPI (last 5 years) 127-115-95-64
1998-99 FINISH: Lost in NCAA first round.
ESPN.com Clubhouse
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UAB got to where it wanted to go last season, where every team wants to go: The NCAA Tournament. While others arrived in grand style, the Blazers' trip was one of those bumpy, lose-your-lunch journeys that engenders such great relief when the destination is reached. Last year's UAB team was quite a trip. Fred Williams and Willie Mitchell were sour and self-absorbed. Mitchell never lived up to his McDonald's All-America billing. Williams should have been first-team all-conference. They will not be missed, whether this Blazers team falls as far as seems possible. Having survived coaching those guys, Murry Bartow prefers to focus on the result rather than the experience. His team made The Show. That is what they will put on the banner. There's not a lot for the current Blazers to learn from that team, however. If they view that club as successful, they may be tempted to repeat its methods. That would be a mistake because UAB deserves better, and also because this team is not rich enough in talent to afford it.
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Blue Ribbon Analysis |
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BACKCOURT B- BENCH/DEPTH C+
FRONTCOURT C+ INTANGIBLES C-
After comfortably winning the National Division last season, UAB is in danger of falling back into the pack. It has less in the way of veteran production to rely upon than just about anyone in the division. Recruiting was not the quality that would demand the Blazers be listed among the favorites. Coach Murry Bartow doesn't seem to be worried. He would prefer that we overlook all that and go ahead and pick the Blazers to finish in the first division. "I always want expectations to be high," Bartow said. "It doesn't win games for you, but I do like when expectations are high. I'm optimistic about this team; there's a little unknown there." There are so many questions to be answered that it's hard not to figure UAB will finish toward the bottom of the list. If LeAndrew Bass and Myron Ransom approach their potential and the one who doesn'tstart continues to exert himself, the Blazers could have something. Their best asset in this race is that only South Florida enters the season with a good idea of who plays where and what sort of a team it will be. UAB is picked fifth. The difference between second and fifth could be as it was last year when both teams finished 6-10 in league play and the tie-breaking procedures went into overdrive. |
That should not be a problem. Five of the top seven scorers from last year are gone. This team's most experienced player is 6-3 senior wing Torrey Ward, who will be whatever you want him to be and most likely will never be what you do not need. Ward (8.5 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 69 assists) has played shooting guard and small forward for the Blazers, and most likely will play the majority of his time on the front line this season. Ward showed what kind of man he is when he grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds last December against Auburn and All-American Chris Porter. He also had a 25-point game against Memphis. In the final two games he struggled, going zero for seven with four turnovers against Iowa in the NCAA Tournament. Even on such a dreadful day, Ward had six assists. The other returning starter is 6-3 senior guard Eric Holmes (9.2 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 102 assists, 41 steals), who had a solid season after transferring from junior college. He played point guard and shooting guard in his first season, depending on what UAB needed. Holmes all but single-handedly shot UAB into the tournament field with his mesmerizing effort in the Conference USA Tournament against DePaul, when he scored 24 points on eight of 12 shooting, grabbed five rebounds and passed for four assists. Without that effort, UAB would have been an NIT team again. The question of how the lineup will be structured rests primarily with juniors LeAndrew Bass and Myron Ransom. They were teammates at Birmingham's West End High a couple years back and were probably the most highly regarded prep players to sign at UAB in the '90s. Each has had problems finding playing time on a veteran team. They were fringe contributors last season. Ransom (3.7 ppg, 2.6 rpg) had an extremely disappointing sophomore season, averaging 11 minutes and shooting .340 from the field. He is athletic and powerful at 6-5, 220 pounds, but he is not as good a shooter as he thinks (seven of 34 on threes) and needs to concentrate on plumbing the baseline for points and rebounds. That's his game, and if he sticks to it, he can become at least a 25-minute player, perhaps a starter at small forward. "Myron can play a couple different places," Bartow said. "I think his biggest attribute is he's a great competitor. We just need to find a place for him on the floor. He doesn't really have a true position. He was caught behind Willie and Fred Williams last year. He hates to lose. He's very competitive. I think he's going to have a good year." Bass (3.4 ppg, 2.7 rpg), 6-4, started 10 games and averaged 20 minutes. He shot only .403 from the field and does not have an abundance of long-range attempts to excuse that number. He was one of four on threes. He passed for 96 assists and balanced that with 88 turnovers. He can be an effective defender, with his reach producing 34 steals last season. "LeAndrew and Myron both had great summers in terms of their development," Bartow said. "They're not freshmen and sophomores anymore. They both need to have really good junior years. They've both played a lot. They haven't started much, and now they need to step up. It's very important for our team." UAB really needs Bass to be a full-time player from the start. If he can handle the point-guard job, that frees Holmes to concentrate on scoring. Given the nature of the other players who represent the most likely candidates to fill the rotation, that's needed. No one who returns averaged double-figure scoring last season. The Blazers must find somebody who can score. Holmes did that often enough in his first season to suggest he is the one. He shot only .363 from the field and .333 from three-point range. Certainly that is troubling, and Holmes slumped badly at the close of the season. With the exception of the DePaul game, Holmes was all but useless after February. He had six consecutive single-figure games, then flamed out against Iowa in a winnable NCAA Tournament game. Part of Holmes' problem as a scorer was having to play both positions and bounce between the mentality required of each. He was the MVP of a summer league in California, concentrating primarily on scoring (because who does anything else in summer league basketball?). Bartow will not say that is a preference, only that it seems the most likely option. "He can score," Bartow said. "On the other hand, there is some merit to playing him at the point. That's one huge thing we have to figure out pretty quickly." Ransom could easily demand with his performance that he get the opportunity to start, which would place Holmes in charge of the offense, Ward at the shooting-guard spot and Bass in the position to play 20-25 minutes as a backup point once again. Holmes was a reasonably proficient point guard as a junior. He is not going to be the same level of defender at the point as Bass, and neither is he going to be as effective turning back shooting guards as Ward. He's got to play somewhere, though. He may get some minutes at the point even if Bass is the regular. UAB also could use Morris Finley, a 5-11, 165-pound freshman who averaged 25.6 points and shot .426 from three-point range as a senior at Lafayette (Ala.) High. He led Lafayette to the state title game and scored 71 points in the semifinals and final. Bill Armstrong (11 appearances, 0.5 points), a 6-1 junior walk-on, is also a point guard. UAB's inside game will need to be entirely rebuilt. Bartow is hoping that can begin with 7-1, 255-pound junior center Igor Nikolic. The problem is that nothing Nikolic has done in two seasons since transferring from junior college that suggests he can deliver. Nikolic (2.9 ppg, 1.9 rpg) played in 22 games last season for an average of eight minutes and shot .510 percent from the field. "He's got to become a little more physical, but that's never going to be his strength," Bartow said. "He's much stronger now. He's a very skilled, typical European big kid. He shoots it well, passes it well, but he's not your true block-to-block post player. We've got to see what he does well, make sure we're using him to that benefit and not make him into what he isn't." It's quite possible that what Nikolic isn't is a regular at a high-major level. If that's correct, UAB will be back to trying to get by with burly 6-7 guys defending C-USA's better big men. The problem with that is all of UAB's burly guys are new. The one who will challenge Nikolic for playing time in the post is 6-7, 235-pound junior Chico Moore. Bartow said he is "the only other guy who you'd consider to maybe be a center." UAB has had such players in that position before: James Bristow in the mid-'90s, DeWayne Brown last season. Moore averaged 8.8 points and 7.5 rebounds last season at the College of Southern Idaho, which means he is very much like those other guys. He will shoot a high percentage (.589 as a sophomore) because he won't take many shots. Not many guys go from scoring single figures in JC to double-figures in Division I. "He can defend the five (center), bang and rebound, do the things that need to be done," Bartow said. The wide-bodied guy who might be able to deliver some offensive production is 6-5, 245-pound junior Mark Kimbrough, who averaged 22.5 points and 8.4 rebounds at Pensacola (Fla.) Junior College and was the school's career scoring leader. He can be compared to former Memphis forward Omar Sneed for his ability to set himself on the block and convert touches into scores. Kimbrough was a first-team all-state player in a state rich in junior college talent. He is his school's career scoring leader with 1,308 points. His two years in JC were played in 1996-97 and 1997-98. Kimbrough, originally headed for Alabama, sat out last year. "We think he's got a chance to be very, very good," Bartow said. "If Erik, Torrey and Kimbrough have good years, we could be pretty good." The Blazers also signed 6-5, 205-pound junior David Walker of Okaloosa-Walton Community College in Florida to challenge for playing time at small forward. Between Ward and Ransom, he has a lot of competition with which to deal. It may be difficult for him to make a major impact. Walker averaged 12.1 points and 8.9 rebounds and shot .550 from the field. The Blazers signed four freshmen, the most promising of whom is 6-7, 185-pound wing Sidney Ball. He averaged 15.1 points, 9.0 rebounds and 5.0 blocked shots and was second-team all-state at Tuscaloosa (Ala.) Hillcrest High. He was one of UAB's key targets at least the one the Blazers got after losing Birmingham native Rod Grizzard to Alabama. Ball is a versatile, athletic wing whom the coaching staff expects to become a contributor soon. Ball is not the only rookie recruited at that position. The Blazers also got 6-6 small forward Derrick Underwood from Boaz (Ala.) High. He averaged 16.6 points and scored 1,920 during his career. He was No. 5 on the Birmingham News' Super Seniors list. Freshman Tony Johnson is more of a shooting guard. He is 6-4, 170 and played at Union County High in Morganfield, Ky., where he averaged 17.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists. The Blazers made a late grab for one more contender for playing time at the wing forward spot: 6-7 Ladrick Simon from Southwestern (Calif.) Junior College. Simon was rated the No. 14 player among jucos by the PrepStars recruiting service, and averaged 24.6 points and 8.1 rebounds, although the competition he faced was considered to be less than stringent. Simon will face a battle for playing time, but the competition is not such that he has no chance to overcome it. Although this team is smaller and may be quicker than some previous UAB clubs, Bartow does not expect to make a major change in his philosophy. The Blazers will most likely continue to focus on guarding the lane. "You do what you're comfortable doing," he said. "Basically, I'm a man-to-man guy. I believe in being a good rebounding team." UAB will have to be more conscious of how it defends the basket, because scoring is obviously an issue. "I like the freshmen. I think the opportunity is much different," Bartow said, comparing this group to the slow progress made by Bass and Ransom. "We've got eight new players. There'll be so much jockeying for position in terms of who's going to star and who's going to get minutes. They're going to have a lot to say in who plays. I don't have any problem playing them. Obviously, they've got to win that time."
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