Everything seems new for ASU women’s Coach Brian Boyer and rebuilt Red Wolves.

JONESBORO — A year ago, Brian Boyer’s Arkansas State women’s basketball practices got going pretty quickly.

Boyer and his team would hit the floor, and within min- utes they’d run through a few drills and often go right into five-on-five live scrimmages. Having five seniors made such a workout possible.

Now, ASU is a few weeks into a season in which it no longer has its top five scorers, many of whom were instrumental in it winning 73 games over the past three seasons. Now, the Red Wolves have eight freshmen and only three players who averaged more than five minutes per game a year ago.

This year’s roster has called for slower starts to practice with more instruction and drill work, workouts that remind senior guard Brittney Fowler of when she first arrived on the team three years ago — with one exception.

“When it was my freshman

year there were only four of us,” she said. “So, if we messed up, we could hide a little bit.”

That’s not the case this year, considering ASU has eight freshmen on its roster, meaning simple math would suggest that some of those newcomers may be in the starting lineup when the team opens the season Nov. 11

at Oklahoma State.

That’s caused Boyer, whose next victory will be his 300th in 18 seasons with the Red Wolves, to readjust his preseason practice routine and his outlook on the season as a whole.

ASU, which was 27-6 last year and lost to Troy in the semifinals of the league tournament, was picked seventh in the league in a poll of league coaches released last week. But Boyer said the expectation

is still to compete for a Sun Belt title.

“What has changed, though,” Boyer said, “is that our focus really has to be on [ASU’s Sun Belt opener on] Dec. 29 — that’s where our season really starts, and just use this nonconference to get ready for that.”

In recent years, Boyer felt his team was good enough to reach the NCAA Tournament. That meant he felt it had to get every nonconference victory it needed in case it required an at-large bid to reach the NCAA Tournament. ASU never received the at-large bid, instead losing in the Sun Belt final twice and the semifinal last year and settling for a spot in the WNIT.

“You felt like every game was a must-win,” he said. “With this group, we need to use the nonconference and really have fun and learn, get everybody minutes, figure out our best rotations for the time that conference rolls around.” He’s got plenty of options. Fowler averaged 3.0 points and 11.2 minutes per game last year, while forward Lauren Bradshaw is ASU’s leading returning scorer at 4.0 points, rebounder at 2.9 and minutes played at 14.8. The 6-2 junior said she can look around and see that Aundrea Gamble, a three-time Sun Belt player of the year, Khadija Brown-Haywood, Amanda Lawson and others are no longer on the roster. She knows points have to come from somewhere.

That’s why Bradshaw spent the offseason working on her outside shooting and ball-handling, to try and get close to the player Brown-Haywood was when she averaged 17.4 points per game last year.

“That’s one of my goals right now,” Bradshaw said, “just to have the big change that she had last year.”

That’s a good start for Boyer, who complimented the progress of senior guard Dominique Oliver and freshmen point guards Starr Taylor, Tayton Hopkins and Payton Tennison, all of whom provide the Red Wolves with quickness. Boyer likes his team’s size, too, with six players at 6-0 or taller.

He’s not quite sure how his team will play, but at least he’s got time to figure it out.

“I’m still not sure what our style is going to be,” he said. “We’re going to have to figure out ways to create shots for these players a little bit. Now, whether that’s in light of utilizing our quickness or size, I don’t know that just yet.

“We’re not there yet, but it’s kind of neat to have some choices.”