Name: University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Founded: UALR traces its history back to 1927 when Little Rock Senior High School started offering secondary education classes as Little Rock Junior College. It operated in that manner, serving the needs of the community at large, through 1957, when it became a privatized four year degree institution and changed its name to Little Rock University. That lasted until the 1960s when some research/discussion/negotiating led to LRU being absorbed into the University of Arkansas
structure in 1969. They remained a separate institution from the school up north in Fayetteville, but they were part of the same overarching system, and they’ve been University of Arkansas at Little Rock ever since.
Wait, but the top of the page says Little Rock? Right, the school is Arkansas at Little Rock, the athletics teams for UALR go by the simpler naming convention of Little Rock. It’s like how the school over on the east side of Milwaukee is still University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, but their athletics teams just go by Milwaukee. Same idea.
Enrollment: 8,026 for Fall 2025, although it’s unclear how many of those are undergraduates.
And now, Power Rankings The Most Interesting Official UALR Student Groups: As listed here, and we’re just automatically ignoring the fraternities and sororities. Sorry/not sorry, you’re by default not interesting.
Fermata Nowhere A Capella
Twilight Appreciation Club (the Stephenie Meyer book or the time of day? I DON’T KNOW!)
Film Club
Anime Club
Tabletop Roleplaying Games Club
Trojan Motorsports
Pretty Prancers (I don’t know what this is, but it has an interesting name.)
Sustainability Club (if only because I’m fascinated by the idea of the possibility that SUSTAINABILITY Club loses steam and ends up disbanding)
Notable Alumni: Dona Bailey, the co-developer of Centipede; Julie Adams, who played Kay Lawrence, the female lead in The Creature From The Black Lagoon; Mike Saunders, an accountant, punk band singer, and most importantly, rock critic that is credited with the genesis of the term “heavy metal”; Dick Powell, the first actor to ever portray Philip Marlowe in a movie; and finally, former NBA player, former NBA head coach, and former WNBA head coach Derek Fisher.
Matt Barnes, please do not show up to beat my ass because I mentioned Derek Fisher in something approaching a positive light. Long time readers will note that the “and finally” spot in these previews is in fact actually meant in a derogatory manner. Thank you.
They Have Their Own Hand Sign: I’ll let the university’s Instagram explain.
I am prepared to see an argument erupt between Little Rock fans and Louisville fans. Please advise me if this transpires. Thank you.
Nickname: Trojans
Why “Trojans”? Other than The Trojan War and so on? I can’t track anything down for you, other than they were the Trojans before they rebranded the athletic department from Arkansas-Little Rock to just Little Rock back in 2014.
Last Season: 19-14, with a 12-8 record in the Ohio Valley Conference
Final 2024-25 KenPom.com Ranking: #225 out of 364 teams
Final 2024-25 BartTorvik.com Ranking: #254 out of 364 teams
Preseason Poll: Little Rock is the preseason favorite in the Ohio Valley Conference this season. They snagged 12 of the 20 first place votes in the OVC’s preseason poll, which is voted on by both the head coaches and the communication directors. The Trojans ended up with 188 points in the polling, 11 points more than Southeast Missouri, who earned six first place votes.
This Season: 1-1, but 0-1 against Division 1 opponents after losing 92-72 to Milwaukee on Monday night.
Current KenPom.com Ranking: #192, down from their starting position of #152
Current BartTorvik.com Ranking: #148, down from their rank of #141 before their season opener against Arkansas Baptist.
Returning Stats Leaders
Points: Johnathan Lawson, 15.4 ppg
Rebounds: Tuongthach Gatkek, 6.3 rpg
Assists: Johnathan Lawson, 3.6 apg
Current Stats Leaders
Points: Johnathan Lawson, 16.0 ppg
Rebounds: Cameron Wallace, 6.0 rpg
Assists: Braxton Bayless, 5.5 apg
Head Coach: Darrell Walker, in his eighth season at Little Rock. He has a record of 101-113 in Division 1 and 146-131 in college after two seasons at Clark Atlanta University. Shouts to Bomani Jones. Walker also has 169 games as an NBA head coach, going 56-113 across three seasons with Toronto and Washington. He also coached the Washington Mystics for 12 games in 2000, going 5-7. Walker played in the NBA for 720 games across 11 seasons, appearing for the Knicks, Nuggets, Wizards, Pistons, and Bulls, including playing 28 regular season and nine playoff games for Chicago in 1992-93 on the way to winning their third straight NBA title.
Bigs: Nope.
Tuongthach Gatkek and Terrion Burgess are the tallest chaps on the roster at 6’9”, but the Trojans list them at 187 pounds and 200 pounds respectively. That’s two instances of Tall Man, not Big Man. Little Rock has three guys standing 6’8” tall, but Kachi Nzei is the heaviest of the three at just 225 pounds. Again: Tall Man, not Big Man. Leading rebounder Cameron Wallace is one of those three at 210 pounds.
Shooters: Johnathan Lawson is the only guy with at least 10 three-point attempts through two games, and he has hit five of his 13 attempts. That’s 38.5%, which is more than fine, and the former Memphis Tiger and former Creighton Bluejay hit nearly 42% of his attempts last season. Braxton Bayless is 5-for-7 to start the year and he’s a career 40% shooter, so there’s some truth in this season opening heater. Kachi Nzei had never attempted a three-pointer in his 48 career games at Xavier and Penn State, but he’s 3-for-4 so far this year.
Truman Claytor IV is the only other guy with more than one attempt this season, and he’s 1-for-4, although 1-for-3 against Milwaukee is a perfectly acceptable one game performance. None of the guys with just one attempt through two games have a history of hitting shots at the Division 1 level, but, hey, you never know, I guess?
What To Watch For: Look, I don’t want to be reductive here, but if Milwaukee can take a 41-38 halftime lead and turn it into a 92-72 victory, then I’m going to need to see something better than that from Marquette. I’m not saying they HAVE TO win by 22 or more, but I am saying that Marquette needs to be more firmly in control of this game at the half than the Panthers were in their contest. This isn’t even an “obviously, Marquette is better than Milwaukee, therefore…” argument. This is a “Marquette got ran off the floor by Indiana on Sunday, and they can not be half-assing their way through this game” argument. This needs to be a “Sorry, Little Rock, wrong place, wrong time” game.
With just one Division 1 game under their belts, it’s a little hard to be making any sweeping statements about what Little Rock is or is not this season. We can, however, look for trends for Darrell Walkers’ Trojans teams.
We can look, we just won’t find that much. Their offensive profile has been all over the place since Walker was brought in for the 2018-19 season. One thing that we can rely on pretty well is something that we kind of already alluded to: Little Rock probably won’t try to shoot a lot of three-pointers. They’ve spent most of Walker’s seasons ranked somewhere in the bottom half of the country in attempt rate and they’ve been sub-300 in each of the last three years according to KenPom.com. Their 28.6% of shots coming from behind the arc against Milwaukee would be the lowest attempt rate in Walker’s tenure if it lasted for the whole season.
The intriguing part about that refusal to shoot threes? Little Rock’s usually pretty solid at scoring off an assist. They’ve been top 150 in assist rate in all of his seasons and had a four year run in the top 100. Usually you’d think that Catch And Shoot Threes is the fast track to assists, but if LR isn’t shooting threes, then they’re not getting those helpers.
I do wonder how many of those assists are coming by way of fast break points. The Trojans have consistently been right in the neighborhood of a 20% turnover rate on the defensive side of the ball, and they actually finished last year at #17 in the country in that department. Johnathan Lawson and Tuongthach Gatkek were both a bit part of that last season with individual steal rates in the top 400 in the country per KenPom.com, and Gatkek was in the top 180. I don’t think I want to see this game turn into a steal-off, but at a glance, that certainly seems like a possible outcome.
All-Time Series: Marquette leads, 2-0. The two teams played 10 years apart, with MU winning 75-44 in December 1990 and 48-46 in December 2000.
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