For Appalachian State to take charge in a jumbled race in the Southern Conference's North Division, coach Jason Capel says, it will have to find consistency and show toughness.
Jamaal Trice could be the linchpin in that formula starting today, when Appalachian State will start a string of three straight home games with a game against North Division leader Elon.
Tipoff is set for 2 p.m. at the Holmes Center.
"When I recruited Jamaal, it was for his toughness," Capel said.
Trice, a well-traveled transfer who began his college career at Connecticut, started his first season at ASU as advertised — with four double-figures scoring games, including 27 points at Tennessee Tech. Then his production tailed off a bit.
"All through the preseason and the first part of the year, he controlled practice and held guys accountable and himself accountable," Capel said. "Then he backslid a little bit."
Capel said he and Trice recently talked about that.
"To his credit, he responded," Capel said. "We need him to be who he is."
Trice, who scored 21 points last Saturday in a victory against Western Carolina, was hampered with early foul trouble in Thursday's loss to UNC Greensboro. He has a reputation as an unselfish player and defensive stopper, and he says he doesn't focus on scoring.
"I just want us to win," said Trice, a 6-foot-6, 230-pound junior who is averaging 11.1 points and ranks third in the SoCon in 3-point accuracy at 44 percent. "We've won everywhere I've been. And we're going to do that here. It is coming together for us, and I feel that we will be more consistent from here on out."
Capel said he needs Trice to be a leader.
"He can score, but that's not who he is," Capel said. "He is a complete player. He is one of our better defenders. He is a good shooter, but he can't rely on 3s. He is a guy who can get to the basket, attack the basket and make plays. We need his overall game."
Trice grew up in South Central Los Angeles but moved with his family to Cerritos, Calif., when he was about 12. His father and mother work for the department of water and power in California. He has two older brothers and a sister, who played basketball at Cal State Northridge. His uncle Robin Kirksey played at Loyola-Marymount in the early 1990s.
Trice made a 40-minute commute daily to Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, a basketball powerhouse that won its eighth state title last season.
To enhance his college options, his dad encouraged a year of prep school, did the legwork and settled on Mount Zion Christian Academy in Durham.
"My dad just told me one day that I was going to North Carolina," Trice said. "I said OK."
It turned out to be a good move. Trice averaged 26 points, received offers from ACC and Big East schools and settled on Connecticut to be groomed into a big shooting guard.
He played in 10 games as a freshman in 2009-10 but didn't see any Big East action. After it became apparent to him that he wasn't going to figure prominently into the Huskies' plans, he asked for a release.
Trice said he liked coach Jim Calhoun, and that there were no hard feelings about his departure.
"He's a great coach, I learned a lot, but it just wasn't the spot for me," Trice said.
"I just didn't see that the playing time was going to come."
Rather than sit out a year by transferring immediately to another Division I school, Trice chose junior college. He enrolled at Midland College in Texas and played last season for a team that went 33-4 and played for a national junior-college title.
"A lot of people look down on JuCo players, but the thing is they all play really hard because they want to get to that next level," Trice said. "It made me a lot tougher."
From there, Trice considered Murray State but settled on Appalachian State.
"They wanted me the most," he said.
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