Ronnie Arrow Speaks In Preseason Media Day Press Conference
South Alabama Men’s Basketball coach Ronnie Arrow spoke at the Sun Belt Conference media day on Wednesday. They also announced the all-conference teams and preseason polls earlier in the morning but they also listed the television schedule for the upcoming season.
The South Alabama – FAU game on February 9 was selected to be shown on the Sun Belt Network and the tip-off was changed to 7:30pm for the broadcast. Also the season opening game against Florida State can be seen on ESPN3.com at 6pm CST.
Below are highlights of the teleconference.
Coach Ronnie Arrow’s opening statement. “We have seven guys back from last year’s team, with Aug, Freddie, Javier Carter and Mychal Ammons, guys that were able to give us a lot of good minutes last year. Xavier Roberson broke a bone in his foot last year but is back full-strength. We’re looking forward to it. We think we have the players in place to be able to make a run at the championship, as long as everybody stays healthy. I think the conference is going to be up. Last year there were four to six teams that had seven or eight new players and now those teams have all those guys back this year with experience.”
Arrow spoke about the race for the Sun Belt title. “When you have Tony Mitchell back… I was telling everybody he could in the pros that I know that he was ready and he needs to go. He chose to come back and he brings instant notoriety to the league with a player of that status. I think Augustine Rubit is right there with him. I think Aug has proven he’s not only one of the top players in the conference, but also in the country. As far as teams being able to come on, we believe that we’re one of those teams. I think it’s going to be very competitive. Middle Tennessee has 10 of their 12 back, North Texas has a lot of their guys back and Arkansas State has a lot of their guys back. I think it’ll be a competitive race and there will be teams in this conference knocking off big-name schools in preseason.”
Arrow then spoke about how the preseason is going for the Jaguars so far. “We had an intrasquad game last game and we had some good things happen in certain areas. We’re playing Mychal Ammons inside and outside. He averaged 10 points and five rebounds as a freshman. If Tony Mitchell wouldn’t have been a freshman last year, Mychal would have been looked at as one of the top two or three freshmen in the league. He’s playing very well. We have a new guy, Viktor Juricek from Slovakia, who has come in and is learning. He’s getting Americanized quickly. He’s used to the European style where he hangs around the 3-point line, he can shoot the ‘3’, but we’re getting him Americanized so that he can go inside and outside. He’ll be a young man to watch this year. Javier Carter was the eighth-best shot blocker in the country last year before he got hurt and he ended up being the 16th-best shot blocker. Antoine Allen and Dre Conner are two guards that we brought in to keep people off of Aug and not be able to double down on him.”
Then Arrow spoke about getting ready for the season. “One of the things that helped us was our trip to Canada. We got to have eight practices and play three games over there. So we got to play against good competition to get us ready. With all the guys back and the new guys, it gave them a chance to know each other on and off the court. Our first regular season game is at Florida State, so we better be ready. So all of that and the strong non-conference schedule will help us.”
South Alabama has an exhibition game agaisnt Spring Hill College on Monday, November 5. They will begin the season against Florida State on Friday, November 9 in Tallahassee, Florida with a 6pm tip-off. The game can be seen on ESPN3.