All Shulman needs for bigger dream is three more wins for UCA

Things have gotten busy over the weekend for Central Arkansas coach John Shulman after winning the ASUN regular-season championship with a win over Queens on Saturday.

As might be expected, it took awhile to get him nailed down. The first question was if he was staying busy.

“You think?” he said with a laugh.

Since the day former athletic director Brad Teague hired Shulman in the spring of 2024, he’s said one thing about the objective for the regular season. They play big-time opponents in the regular season.

They aren’t at the level to compete with folks like North Carolina, Arkansas, Vanderbilt and SMU. The Bears want to be competitive and maybe grab a win here and there, but they know the realities and it’s all about getting them ready for the conference grind and reach that first objective.

It also helps the bottom line a little, too, but coaches are always preparing for games in January and February to set up bigger games in March. That’s when championships are won.

Shulman told us at the 1976 Bears Reunion in October of 2024 what that first objective is.

UCA Bears coach John Shulman on sidelines against Queens at the Farris Center in Conway, Ark. | Kalub Rainey-allBears+ Images

From Reunion promise to regular-season champion

“We want to win three games at the end of the year and we’re in the NCAA Tournament,” he said. UCA could achieve that in just his second season in charge.

There were some looks exchanged after that. Nobody was considering a 20-win season at that point or even a conference title. Just being competitive once in awhile would have been an improvement. I told Shulman this Monday afternoon and he didn’t sound that surprised.

“Every year the goal changes, but the ultimate one every single season is to win it all,” Shulman said, “I’m a dreamer. We lost three conference games this year and could have won them all.”

The Bears were 20-11 overall this year, 14-3 in ASUN games. With way too many empty seats at the Farris Center (who ended up missing seeing a pretty good team develop), there was only one loss there to complain about this year.

“I try to speak it into existence,” he said.

Now there’s a buzz around basketball that hasn’t been seen in a long time. In years past, fans were wandering over to baseball and softball games or sitting around Mike’s Place downtown asking what anybody knew about football spring practice preparations.

“I appreciate the excitement,” Shulman said. “It’s been really good. I’d love to finish this thing big in the tournament.”

UCA Bears guard Camren Hunter drives against Queens at the Farris Center in Conway, Ark. | Kalub Rainey-allBears+ Images

Hunter’s return sparks turnaround

The ASUN tournament will be in Jacksonville, Fla. It’s not that far from the ocean on the eastern side of of the state.

UCA has a bye in the first round, so they won’t play until Friday against the winner of the Bellarmine-Jacksonville State game played Thursday night.

“Both of those teams are really good,” Shulman said.

One of the biggest reasons for the Bears’ turnaround has been the play of senior Camren Hunter, who transferred to Wisconsin and the UCA sports web site doesn’t have those statistics. They don’t really matter because Shulman got him back for this season.

All he did was average 19.7 points per game and 4.2 rebounds a game for the 6-foot-3 guard.

“He’s really improved our team being back this year,” Shulman said. “He wanted to leave a legacy.”

Hunter has done that this season.

“Cam changed the trajectory of this team,” he said.

Maybe his biggest contribution, though, has been showing everybody else needs to see.

“It’s not a good thing when your best player is the laziest guy on the team,” Shulman said. “That’s not the case with Cam. He’s our hardest worker and is still trying hard. We just finished practice and he was our hardest worker out there.”

Now it’s down to getting those three more wins, though. The tournament time is now to reach that initial objective to win enough games to get a bye in the conference tournament, then win three in a row.

Then Bears fans will probably be watching March Madness a little close in a couple of weeks.